The Connect for Global Change program’s first round projects in Finland are halfway through. What is happening in the projects and what do they have in common? What insights can other organizations working for Sustainable Development Goals learn from these projects? Project Manager Anni Vihriälä describes steps taken in the projects.
Text: Anni Vihriälä
Identifying and changing the root causes of global inequality is more important than ever before. Climate crisis, wars, inhumane living conditions, biodiversity loss, polarization. Because we do not live in isolation from the rest of the world, everything boils down to whether we can solve the root causes of global inequality. Global citizenship education and development communication are one important means to this end. Solutions are being sought and implemented at a practical level in ten projects carried out by organizations in Finland as part of the Connect for Global Change programme.
More understandable language
Everyone must be included in the solutions; no one can be left out. One factor that excludes people is language. For example, when talking about global development issues, gender-transformative approach, or the root causes of the climate crisis, language can easily become difficult to understand. What can be done in practice to make language more understandable for more people?
In the Taksvärkki and Rauhanliitto Information and Action for All – Plain Steps towards a Sustainable Future project, plain and understandable language is central. Complex themes related to Global Challenges are explored with young people using language that is as clear and accessible as possible. Learning takes place in a practical way, for example through simple drama exercises. The materials are clear and include pictures to support the message.
The videos produced by the Helinä Rautavaara Museum for the Stories of Hope, Tools for Change project, use symbols in addition to speech and text to make global challenges more accessible. Many other projects have also made use of plain language experts. For example, Green Youth and students edited lecture material on climate change to be as clear as possible for their Young Global Influencer project workshop, which was attended by young people from different backgrounds.
It is a big challenge to break down complex issues into something that is easy for everyone to understand, but this challenge has been tackled head-on in the projects run by the organizations implementing these 10 projects. They produce materials and ideas that are also useful to other organizations struggling with the challenge of complex language.
Young people as key actors
The projects are not carried out for young people, but primarily with young people. In Interpedia’s A Shared Future in Play – Youth as Builders of a Sustainable World project, young people themselves defined the themes related to global development issues that were important to them during the project planning phase. They are also developing and testing a role-playing game to be produced as part of the project. The joint project between the Finland-Somalia Network and Esma’s The Future Makers is producing sustainable development learning materials for vocational education, which are being designed and developed jointly by young people in Finland and Somalia. Young people who participate in the Young Global Influencer course organized by the Green Youth and Students receive information and tools for influencing global issues that are important to them.
In a project run by Taksvärkki and Rauhanliitto, young people were first trained in sustainable development themes, after which they independently came up with ideas and wrote scripts for videos to be produced as part of the project. One message heard from young people is a desire for action and concrete results. In the FFD and Maa- ja kotitalousnaiset (Rural Women’s Advisory Organization) project the Bites of Change, climate change and the global food system are approached in different ways, one of which is a recipe book and cooking sessions based on it. These sessions use concrete actions to explore larger sustainability issues.
Good ideas have been generated by young people from the outset through joint planning and implementation. At the same time, language becomes more understandable to young people when they design and produce the materials themselves.
Out of the bubbles
One major phenomenon of our time is rising polarization and the lack of dialogue between different groups of people. The Peace, Action, Inclusion project does not shy away from challenging themes, instead it aims to get people from different backgrounds to discuss them together. Themes include masculinity, Palestine, polarization, and militarization. The events foster an environment that encourages dialogue, especially between different generations.
Discussion and opportunities for action are needed throughout Finland, not only in the capital region. Almost all of the 10 projects will take place in different parts of Finland, for example in Joensuu, Oulu, Vantaa, Tampere, Rovaniemi, Mikkeli, Kuopio, Jyväskylä, and Mänttä-Vilppula. In educational institutions across Finland, entire classes or groups of students are reached at once. Some young people are already interested in sustainable development issues, but for many, these may be completely new themes.
The youth work of the Finnish YMCA already reaches many young people who may not be familiar with global challenges. The Youth Work as an Arena for Impactful Global Education project brings global education more strongly into YMCA’s youth work, enabling new young people to learn critical thinking and giving them opportunities to take action. In addition, the analysis of the special features of effective global education in youth work carried out in the project will increase understanding and expertise in the field, particularly for reaching young people less sensitive to global challenges.
During the planning stage of the projects, consideration has already been given to which people are less likely to be reached by the project’s messages and how they can be better reached. Understandable language and genuinely listening to young people will also help in this regard. How would young people themselves reach young people who are not initially interested in sustainable development?
Long-term educational work
The projects directly target young people, challenging them to question things and find solutions for a sustainable and globally just world. In the My story – Our World project young people from different backgrounds learn media skills together and communicate on behalf of a more inclusive and just society.
Many projects also train people who will reach a large number of young people in their work. Interpedia, Taksvärkki, and Rauhanliitto train youth workers and teacher trainees to address global challenges and their solutions with young people. Students gain both content and methods for their own toolbox as future professionals. In this way, the results of the projects are multiplied over several generations.
Our world, which is struggling with multiple crises, is on fire, and many young people understand this. They need information, reinforcement of critical thinking, opportunities to learn together, and opportunities to take action. While urgent action is needed, we must also invest in long-term educational work so that new generations can acquire the skills to solve global challenges amid misinformation and disinformation.
What about the global South?
The projects highlight global inequality and what it means in practice. In Helinä Rautavaara’s museum project, the stories of young Kenyan adults give Finnish young people an opportunity to reflect on discriminatory norms in both Finland and Kenya. The videos in the museum exhibition also provide practical tips from Kenya on what the Finnish youth can do. VR glasses take visitors on a journey into the lives of the exhibition’s main characters in Nairobi.
In the AgendaLab – Youth and Local Solutions for Sustainable Development project, a joint initiative of the UN Association of Finland and The Union of Youth Councils in Finland, young people from Tanzania and Uganda share examples of their own actions to promote sustainable development goals. These successes also inspire Finns to strengthen the implementation of these goals. The FFD and Rural Women’s Advisory Organization project´s materials put focus on women farmers in the global south.
The Finnish Somalia Network and Esma project supports the future agency of young people studying at vocational schools by strengthening global perspectives in their professional development studies. In practice, this means, for example, bringing together Somali and Finnish vocational students in the electrical and restaurant industries to test learning materials online. As peers, they share examples of how sustainability has already been promoted in their respective professions in each country.
All projects have considered how to talk about the global South, how to tell the different stories, and how to link these stories to structural problems such as poverty. What are the global root causes, and what is our responsibility to act in Finland? After that, solutions are brainstormed or presented, both from the countries of the global South and from Finland, as well as opportunities for action in Finland.
Networks, cooperation, impact
All ten projects are based on cooperation. From the outset, the project plans have had strong connections in many directions, and as the projects have progressed, new partners have also been found. New ideas for cooperation have emerged both within and outside the projects.
In addition to organizations, cooperation is carried out with secondary schools, universities, cities, the media, and associations. These ten projects are not separate islands, but together they strengthen civil society in Finland to take on global responsibility. In the bigger picture, they are also linked to all 99 other projects currently being implemented in ten other EU countries within the framework of the Connect for Global Change program.
Fingo is the national coordinator in Finland of the EU-supported Connect for Global Change program.