International Youth Work | Participation | Projects

International Youth Work

Kulttuuriareena 44 does international education both European and nearby area level. During the years we have organized and taken a part of youth exchanges, performing tours, study visits and even done an international cultural youth work seminar. Our staff has coorninated over 20 European Voluntary Work – projects, known today as European Solidarity Corps.

Erasmus+ Youth Program has been our main source of funding but we have also been thankful to have help from Ministry of Education and regional state Administrative Agency.

We are lucky to have good, solid partner organizations from Norway, Belgium, Germany, Slovenia and Ireland among other good friends. With Karelian Russia, we had good co-operation and projects with local independent educational organizations but everything is on ice because of war in Ukraine.

We are interested

We would love to do projects related to culture, like music, dance or theatre. We can bring in our profession, experience and wide range of local partner organizations with their youngsters. Nowdays when we are running our Kuopio Rock Academy we are actively looking for rock-co-operation with our young bands.

Our staff member, mr. Janne Kuitu has a lot of experience about international projects. He has written, coordinated and taken a part over 50 international projects mostly in the framework of Erasmus+ and former Youth In Action.

Local level

We co-operate with local association Puijola and nearby multicultural centre Kompassi. We organize Olohuone 44  (cafe for young adults) with volunteers weekly. Many organizations that do activities in our facilities are/have multicultural background. Our network of local culture associations is remarkable, not only in paper but in practice.

Our latest international projects :

Upcoming : BYE youth exchange in Germany 2025 , GLYE 3.0 in Metsäkartano (Fin) Feb 2025, Media youth exchange in Germany 2025 and possible training courses for youth workers…

Training of youth workers / Belgium 2024

Youth Exchange ”ReEuropize” is on planning/applying level with Landesjugendring Schleswig-Holstein e. V. (Ger) > done 2024

Training of youth workers / Slovenia 2023

Youth Exchange for young peer educators/leaders, in Metsäkartano (Fi) with co-operation of Metsäkartano and Landesjugendring Schleswig-Holstein e. V. (Ger) / done  September 2021 > done 2022 part II

ESC Project that brought a wonderful volunteer from Belgium to Kuopio / 2019-2020

Youth Exhange ”Balticipation” in Mözen (Ger), our Youth Council members with participants from 8 Baltic area countries / September 2019

Karelia Rock Tour II with young bands from Kuopio, Kuusamo (Fi) and Sortavala (Rus), eight days in Russian Karelia played and learned from each other / March 2020

Participation

Kulttuuriareena promotes youth participation with various youth work methods, including representative participation. For us, participation is belonging to your own life and society.

Our staff act as mentors of local Youth Council, helping them in practical issues or in joint projects. One example is organizing biggest local unlimited age events.

Ms Ulla Vuori, our staff, runs local Chilren’s Parliament with education sector deputy director.

During the years, we have been a part of many projects and process to promote youngsters participation.

Projects

As said, we have wide network of organization and cultural associations to work with. We also are interested and motivated to carry inventive projects related to youth work.

Some examples about projects :
ZOBI as a project to do voluntary work with youngsters to achieve work experience – not all youngsters are able to get summer job. Joint Project with local companies and associations ie. building companies, elderly rest homes or enviromental sector.

TeatteriTorstai as a youth theatre project in our facilities, organized by local youth association.

School break times activities with few schools nearby as well as grouping activities.

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As a result of training course in Slovenia 2023 :

Useful guide book of games / groupleading Lifelong Playing – Report (1)