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Equality and equal opportunities plan

Equal Hämeenlinna is the City of Hämeenlinna’s Equality and Non-Discrimination Plan for 2024–2029.

The Equality and Non-Discrimination Plan, Equal Hämeenlinna, is a step toward a more open, safer, and more equal city, where every resident feels they belong to the community. Equality is part of everything the city does. It is reflected in services, in staff working culture, and in the city’s facilities and events.

The plan has three main themes:

  • increasing awareness of diversity in society
  • creating time and places for encounters
  • strengthening residents’ sense of safety

Concrete measures to be carried out by the City of Hämeenlinna and other actors during the plan period have been gathered under these themes. The city monitors progress and ensures that the goals are reflected in everyday practice. Equality and non-discrimination themes are also part of UNICEF’s Child-Friendly City initiative.

Explore the plan

Measures of the Equal Hämeenlinna programme

Implementation of the Equal Hämeenlinna plan is monitored by the city’s working group for promoting well-being, health, and safety, which also serves as the city’s equality and non-discrimination working group. Progress on the plan’s goals and measures is reported in the annual reports of the well-being plan and in the well-being report.

Increasing awareness of diversity

  • Producing up-to-date information for the MyIntegration website, including through current highlights and announcements, and reviewing older content.
  • Launch of the Making Home Hämeenlinna website in 2025.
  • Equality and non-discrimination themes are also taken into account at the Club Parliament, held once a year.
  • Public events open to all are organised as part of land use planning, including the annual zoning review, where information is shared on ongoing projects.
  • Open Cultural Centre ARX takes part in national discussion events, such as the forums of the Children’s Culture Association, events organised by the Ministry of Education and Culture, and the Finnish Observatory for Arts and Cultural Education.
  • The Koto Forum, held twice a year (in spring and autumn), brings together Hämeenlinna residents from different backgrounds around a current theme.
  • The ongoing group activities of International Resident Services (men’s group, women’s group, group for older adults, etc.) create opportunities for encounters.
  • International Resident Services’ societal orientation courses will begin during 2025.
  • Continuing Erätauko discussions as part of the city’s activities and training staff as Erätauko facilitators. Discussions will also be piloted in English.
  • All events at Open Cultural Centre ARX can be conducted in English as well as Finnish.
  • Events and activities organised by International Resident Services are held multilingually:
    • Koto Forum
    • group activities
    • information sessions
    • societal orientation courses
    • data collection events
  • Early childhood education organises parents’ evenings in their own language for parents whose native language is not Finnish, in cooperation with integration promotion services.
  • Interpreters are actively used at early childhood education’s own events, such as daycare parents’ evenings.
  • The city’s internal communication operates through multiple channels.
  • The city’s various units communicate externally through multiple channels, using the website, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
  • Open Cultural Centre ARX produces content for its communication channels in both Finnish and English.
  • The MyIntegration.fi website provides information in several languages.
  • Making the early childhood education website more user-friendly.
  • Multilingual early childhood education brochures made available to staff on the intranet.
  • Active use of mobile interpreting in early childhood education.
  • Improving the accessibility of communications.
  • The brand and website renewals in 2025–2026 will take into account improved accessibility, for both readers and content creators.
  • Increasing cooperation between the Communications Unit and International Resident Services to improve the flow of information.
  • The Communications Unit will draw up an international communication plan.
  • Open Cultural Centre ARX highlights the art of children and young people from different backgrounds through inclusive urban culture processes.
  • Producing a diverse image bank. Ensuring that diversity is reflected in all materials by using a wide range of imagery.
  • Diversity will be taken into account when the strategy is updated.
  • Highlighting diversity through statistics.
  • Internationalism as one of the themes of the brand renewal.
  • We Speak Gay partnership cooperation.
  • Volunteer Centre Pysäkki provides training on diversity for volunteers.
  • Equality, non-discrimination, and inclusiveness in the early childhood education client process are recognised, identified, and ensured throughout the entire process. Placement is carried out according to the process criteria.

Creating time and places for encounters

  • Events organised by the city are accessible and free of charge.
  • Erätauko discussions are held throughout the organisation in line with the theme of respectful encounters. Supervisors are trained in good interaction skills to ensure positive interaction is maintained in all encounters.
  • Youth Services will improve communication about existing activities, including by going out to meet young people at their gathering places and at partner organisations’ events, so that young people can more easily find their way to activities.
  • Youth Services will invest in improving the image of youth work, so that a wide range of young people get involved in activities.
  • Parks and recreational areas for encounters are taken into account in land use planning. Opportunities are created to build spaces for encounters between people of different ages.
  • The city organises events and occasions that enable encounters between different age groups
    • Park picnics
    • Pysäkki’s Grandma’s House moments / Volunteer Centre Pysäkki
    • Hippalot / ARX
    • Räikee / ARX
    • Light Phenomenon / ARX
    • Generations Meet / Youth Services
    • Joy in Iittala event / Youth Services
  • The content of open children’s culture services emphasises supporting interaction between children and adults.
  • International Resident Services takes different age groups into account, for example when organising group activities.
  • In early childhood education, cooperation with older adults and nearby schools is being built and strengthened.
  • People of different ages are invited to Erätauko discussions.
  • Regional equality is taken into account in the city’s operations and development.
  • Regional equality has been taken into account in the updated grant criteria.
  • Open Cultural Centre ARX’s Culture Path, part of its cultural education plan, is carried out in four municipalities in the Kanta-Häme region — Hämeenlinna, Hattula, Janakkala, and Riihimäki — from early childhood education through basic education. In Hämeenlinna, cultural education extends to every outlying area.
  • Open cultural centre services are periodically brought out to the outlying areas through various events and campaigns.
  • Self-guided content shared on Open Cultural Centre ARX’s website is accessible nationwide. The content is available in both Finnish and English.
  • Youth Services arrange transport, for example, from outlying areas to larger events held in the city centre.
  • Meetings and mobility of Outreach Youth Work within young people’s living environments.
  • International Resident Services is exploring how to extend multilingual services to the outlying areas.
  • Housing quota refugees in different parts of the city.
  • Regional development is monitored through statistics.
  • Outlying areas are taken into account in marketing and communication content.
  • TyöHäme Employment Area regularly offers employment services at various locations in the outlying areas.
  • Building and maintaining outdoor and hiking areas creates opportunities for encounters.
  • The built environment is taken into account from the perspective of encounters in land use planning.
  • Open Cultural Centre ARX actively seeks to find spaces and models for community activities (the HÄX cellar, the Children’s Garden, events and festivals in urban spaces).
  • The renovation of the Opisto building will provide shared-use spaces that Open Cultural Centre ARX can use for activities for children and families, as well as for events and festivals.
  • Daycare centre yards are accessible and usable by everyone.
  • Accessibility inspections of daycare centres, with information published on the website.
  • Peer meetings for volunteers at Volunteer Centre Pysäkki.
  • Peer support groups held at Volunteer Centre Pysäkki.
  • At Open Cultural Centre ARX, peer support is available through services aimed at families and through the Integrators’ Club, run in cooperation with integration promotion services.
  • HÄX’s activities enable peer support and encounters between young people in similar life situations.
  • Youth Services’ small-group activities, organised according to young people’s situations and needs, enable peer support.
  • International Resident Services takes the enabling of peer support into account in group and other activities.
  • Early childhood education events are aimed at all client families, with functional and interactive encounters.
  • Every early childhood education unit holds events during the operating year that enable peer support.
  • The Culture Path, produced by Open Cultural Centre ARX, is carried out in cooperation with early childhood education and schools, with culture coordinators at schools and early childhood education at its heart.
  • Participation in open children’s culture services is based on families’ own initiative. The threshold for participation is lowered by producing services that can be accessed from multiple locations (for example, craft bags and a materials bank).
  • The on-call family work service of International Resident Services supports cooperation between home, early childhood education, and basic education.
  • Parents’ evenings held in families’ own languages in early childhood education.
  • Recognising and raising awareness of the role of early childhood education in terms of equality, non-discrimination, and integration, among other things.
  • An initial discussion is held with every family in early childhood education.
  • Discussions on the early childhood and pre-primary education curriculum are held with every family.
  • Early childhood education holds a themed month each August called Get to Know and Observe, giving time and space for getting acquainted.
  • International Business Advisory, part of International Resident Services.
  • Basic education is drawing up its own equality and non-discrimination plan.
  • In early childhood education, families can choose the most natural, accessible, and barrier-free services for them with the help of service guidance.
  • The city enables participation through various channels, such as feedback channels, hearings, participatory budgeting, the Council for Persons with Disabilities, the Council for Older People, and the Youth Council.

Strengthening the sense of safety

  • To be introduced in the city’s facilities and activities.
  • Traffic safety as a starting point for all user groups
  • Housing advice for older people
  • Open Cultural Centre ARX assesses the safety of its environment and facilities on a case-by-case basis, such as for exhibitions and events.
  • Open Cultural Centre ARX consults a safety expert on festival safety.
  • Youth Services surveys young people’s experiences of environmental safety, for example through safety walks.
  • Reviewing the location, safety, functionality, and accessibility of flats rented out to clients of International Resident Services.
  • The safety of client facilities and activities at International Resident Services is ensured. The service takes part in and provides input when facilities are being developed.
  • Safety management at early childhood education units (rescue plans in order, drills carried out, safety team in place).
  • Strengthening data security.
    • Consent for photography in the Päikky early childhood education system obtained from guardians.
    • Rollout of the 2025–2027 Digital Plan.
    • Comprehensive data security guidelines.
  • Accessibility for all user groups is the starting point of the accessibility plans.
  • Safety walks are organised.
  • The building control authority oversees the implementation of accessibility in construction.
  • Youth Services surveys the accessibility of youth facilities and adds more accessibility signage.
  • Efforts are made to hold events and occasions in facilities where accessibility has been taken into account.
  • Accessibility of facilities is taken into account in new construction.
  • Early childhood education will map the accessibility rating of daycare centres and publish the information on the website.
  • As part of preventive substance abuse work, a group of volunteer outreach workers is being formed to reach out to young people, particularly on celebration evenings (school closing ceremonies, festivals, etc.).
  • Contact persons for harassment issues are trained across the city’s different sectors.
  • A plan has been drawn up in basic education to protect pupils from violence, bullying, and harassment.
  • Resto mediation training — two adult mediators will be trained at every school.
  • Children’s sense of safety — interaction that fosters and supports warmth; strengthening a culture that prevents exclusion; taking shy and withdrawn children into account.
  • Guardians’ trust in early childhood education, and starting in early childhood education (initial discussion, gentle transition at the start).

Contact information

Jari Pekuri

Physical Exercise and Well-Being Manager
Telephone
050 5706 721
Email
jari.pekuri@hameenlinna.fi
Hyvinvoinnin ja terveyden edistäminen
Last updated 22.10.2026

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