Description of organisation

Jyväskylä is the 7th largest city in Finland. It is located in Central Finland, about 270km north from capital Helsinki. Jyväskylä has many free time activities, events and concerts that are available for teenagers and young adults. These are offered by the city’s youth services as well as various organizations, cultural associations, sports clubs and the teenagers and the young adults themselves. The activities provided by the youth services are mainly directed to those between the ages of 10 and 30.The City of Jyväskylä’s youth services provide teenagers with guided activities, information and counseling through youth centers, clubs, camps, trips, influence groups and online services. The activities are open for all teenagers and usually free; trained youth workers are in charge of the activities. The activities are planned and implemented in cooperation with teenagers.The youth services also provide facilities for association and group meetings as well as for teenagers’ band rehearsals against a reasonable facility fee. The operation of the youth services is based on professionalism, involvement, and abstinence from intoxicants, a sense of community, multiculturalism and cooperation.The youth centers serve as meeting points for teenagers in various areas of the city, and they are open for all teenagers on several evenings each week.Through the Jyväskylä Youth Council and the groups operating at youth centers, teenagers can voice their opinions and cooperate to have an impact on the matters relevant to their neighborhood as well as the society in general.The youth Art Workshop offers training and activities for the unemployed young adults under the age of thirty. The goal of the Youth Art Workshop is to support them in clarifying their life goals, improving their skills in everyday life and to gain work experience and motivation towards employment and life in general. Throughout the year there are several simultaneous workshops of varying lengths active at the same time, with different fields of interest.The fields of interest employed in the workshops are drama and self-expression exercises, various handcrafts and arts, adventure education, nature care, photography and videography or music. All workshops include basic life skills education and sports education. Participation does not usually require earlier knowledge or skills.The Youth Art Workshop's emphasis is on art-based, creative and functional, community-based methods, with the focus always being on experiential learning. The methods employed in Youth Art Workshop differ from many other workshops in Finland, which are often more traditionally work oriented.The Youth Art Workshop offers ten different workshops spanning in length from one to four months. Each workshop has its own theme and field on interest. The emphasis is on art-based, creative, functional, community-based methods and the focus is on experiential learning. The workshops run from one to five days a week, six hours a day and usually have 8 to 14 participants, but these figures may vary. Outreach youth workers offer personal guidance for young adults who are not participating in a workshop at the moment. Youth Multi-service centre goal is to make it easier for youth to discover the services they need and increase collaboration between professionals. It offers accessible multidisciplinary service point and online platform for all youth between ages 13 and 29 living in Jyväskylä. The services will come to clients as necessary: information, advice, and guidance for job-seeking, employment, education, and studying, as well as finances, habitation, well-being, group activities and leisure. To make it easier for youth to find the service that’s right for them, we are concurrently developing both in-person and online services. The Nuorten Jyväskylä (Jyväskylä for Youth) website is being built to better present information on all youth services in the city and help clients find the correct option for their situation.