1. ”NuHa” – how young people and Youth
Departments personnel were
participated in creating new vision
Meiju Hovi
10.3.2015

2. Backround: three important words
•Knowledge-based (planning)
•Participation: both young people and personnel
•Learning

3. The process of creating new vision is
divided in 4 parts:
Interviews
of young
people
Participation of
personnel
Partners in
cooperation
Political guiding
Personnel ”take
to the streets”
Interviews and
meetings
Youth board
meetings
Discussion
forums (4) for
personnel in
spring 2014

4. Why – What – How - Where
• All the young people do not participate in acitivities organized by Youth
Deaparment
• Extensive and rich knowledge about young people´s ideas, dreams
and realities of life
• The whole personnal is with in strategy process
• A mutual experience for the staff
•

5. Why – What – How - Where
• Themes of interview:
– Leisure time: with whom, where, what they do and what they would
like to do
– Relationships, specially friendships
– What they think about Helsinki and own neigbourhood
– Social media: how often, which apps, with whom
– Dreams ja hopes about future
– In which issues they need to have more influence

6. Why – What – How - Where
• Working as a twosome
– Rule 1: not with nearest colleague
• Methods: observation and interview
• 10-15 minutes observation (orientation)
• Aim is to have ”a nice chat with youngsters”
• Rule 2: ”Big ears, tiny mouth”

7. Why – What – How - Where
• Our aim was to meet young people in the places where we do not work
– Rule 3: choose a place where you dont´t normally work
– Let yourself be suprised!
• Coverage: city center, suburbs
• Groupping of interview spots:
1. Public places: shopping centres, parks, skeiting parks, sports
fields, public transport, beaches, events etc.
2. Partly public places: libraries, coffee shops, schools, swimming
pools, flea markets, gyms etc.
3. Groups: different group activities organized by NGOs

9. Timeline
Enquiry to personnel
-Nov 2013
-Ideas of interview spots
-Wishes of working pair and
interview spots
Test group
-Dec 2013
-Testing interview method
-Planning training for
personnel
Trainig for
personnel
-Feb – May 2014
-13 training sessions
-347 participants
Interviews and
reporting
- Feb – June 2014
Work shops (2)
-April 2014
-Defining subjects of
research
Workshops (5)
-Aug 2014
-Analysing data
Raport is ready!
-Nov 2014
Thank-you letters
-Nov 2014
-Partly public places and
groups
Young people´s
comments of results
- Nov 2014 in RuutiExpo
event

10. Results 1
Overarching
•”Nice” as an expectation of leisure time
•Importance of friends
•Social media is commonplace matter for young people
•Young people feel at home in their own neigbourhood
•Need of places which fit to young people´s identity (e.g. age)
•Not enough places specially in the evenings and in wintertime
•Hope for independence
•Aspiration to get a job or study place

11. Results 2
Dividers
•Young people didn´t talk much about money, but you could interpret that
there is differencies in personal wealth
•Helsinki is not the same for all: for some the city is big and for others
borderline stands in nearest shopping center
•The vistas of the future are different: some hope to get reasonable job
and others dream about travelling around the world and a dream
profession
•Mates also differentiate young people. Friends have impact  where you
spend your free time, what you do, what your want to achieve
•Friendships are very important to young people  What about those who
are lonely…?

12. Some numbers
• We visited appox. 140 different places around Helsinki and met 1012
young people
• 353 employees did 655 interviews
• We organized 13 training sessions
• ”Data festival” in August: 113/292 participants
• We employed 2 unemployed young person (academic education) to help
us in the project
• 55 pages in report

13. More information
Merja Hovi
Chief Planner
merja.hovi@hel.fi
Tel. +358 (0)50 559 1757
Harri Taponen
Senior Planner
harri.taponen@hel.fi
Tel. +358 (0)50 559 1712