Promising Practice

All in for Equality

Yhdessä
Multifaceted project that aims to fight discrimination and harassment in everyday life, promote diversity and inclusion, and increase the sense of belonging of young people with an immigrant background.
Valsts
Finland
Type
Encourage reporting
Category
Cooperation with civil society and community organisations
Monitoring progress and impact
Outreach to communities at risk of hate crime victimisation

Promising practice :

Organisation

The Ministry of Justice (Oikeusministeriö) coordinates the project. The project partners are the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman(yhdenvertaisuusvaltuutettu/diskrimineringsombudsmannen), Finnish Business and Society, the Finnish League for Human Rights (Ihmisoikeusliitto/Förbundet för mänskliga rättigheter) and the City of Helsinki (Helsingin kaupunki).

Start and end date

Start date:

1 June 2020.

End date:

31 May 2022.

Scope

National.

Target group(s)

The general population.

Funding

National funding (government budget); co-funded by the EU’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme.

Objectives

  • Enable bystander interventions against discrimination and harassment in everyday life.
  • Increase understanding and awareness about diversity and inclusion in working life.
  • Increase the sense of belonging for young people with an immigrant background through active participation.

Outputs

  • National media campaign on everyday discrimination and bystander interventions.
  • Teaching module for secondary schools.
  • Quality criteria for diversity management in employment, including an e-learning resource.
  • Training on diversity and non-discrimination for employers and employment counsellors, which includes ensuring employers’ commitments to promoting diversity.
  • Mentoring programme that promotes social inclusion for youth from ethnic and religious minority backgrounds by establishing a dialogue between local youth and decision makers.
  • Training on non-discrimination and ethnic profiling for police departments nationwide.

Description

  • National media campaign on everyday discrimination and bystander interventions.
    • The objective of this work package is to develop new, low-threshold tools that enable bystanders to intervene in cases of discrimination and harassment and to increase awareness of cultural and social notions that lead to discrimination and social exclusion in daily life.
  • Teaching module for secondary schools.
    • The aim of this module is to raise awareness among education professionals and secondary school students about non-discrimination, anti-racism and rights awareness.
  • Quality criteria for diversity management in employment, including an e-learning resource.
    • Quality criteria serve as a concrete tool for tangibly promoting diversity and inclusion and promoting the principle of non-discrimination in workplaces. Indicators and the e-learning resource act as a foundation for educating employers and employees.
  • Training on diversity and non-discrimination for employers and employment counsellors, which includes ensuring employers’ commitments to promoting diversity.
    • Training for employers aims to increase awareness of the importance of diversity and non-discrimination in working life.
    • Training for employment counsellors aims to increase awareness about the challenges involved in achieving non-discrimination in working life and provide tools to promote equity.
    • Commitments by employers ensure the ongoing process of promoting diversity in their organisations.
  • Mentoring programme for ethnic and religious minority youth, which promotes social inclusion through active participation.
    • The aim of this programme is to establish dialogue between youth and local decision makers.
  • Training on non-discrimination and ethnic profiling for police departments nationwide.
    • The primary goal of the training is to support the development of immigration surveillance in a manner that helps to maintain trust between different population groups and especially in authorities, in particular the police.

Critical success factors

All the actions are still ongoing; therefore, it is not possible to reflect on lessons learned at this point.

  • National media campaign on everyday discrimination and bystander interventions.
    • To ensure success, and that the campaign avoids common pitfalls of media campaigns, a panel of experts in anti-racism, non-discrimination, diversity, media and audio-visual production is supporting the process.
  • Teaching module for secondary schools.
    • Focus groups have been set up with teachers and secondary school students to ensure that the training module matches the needs and interests of both stakeholders.
  • Quality criteria for diversity management in employment, including an e-learning resource.
    • It was important to carry out comprehensive mapping of the Finnish context to ensure that the e-learning tool matches the needs of the stakeholders.
    • Advocacy focus groups on different issues (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+); disability; anti-racism; and trans rights) were set up to review the quality criteria to ensure the intersectionality of the tool.
  • Training on diversity and non-discrimination for employers and employment counsellors, which includes ensuring employers’ commitments to promoting diversity.
    • Training sessions have been planned together with experts in employment and employment counselling to identify stakeholder needs and build the training sessions around those needs.
  • Mentoring programme that promotes social inclusion for youth from ethnic and religious minority backgrounds by establishing a dialogue between local youth and decision makers.
    • The City of Helsinki MakeSomeNoise concept was piloted in the Helsinki region as part of a separate project and was found to be very successful. Through the All in for Equality project, it is possible to disseminate the concept nationwide. Local advisory boards for ethnic relations (of which there are seven) and local youth services are used to ensure the success of the practice.
  • Training on non-discrimination and ethnic profiling for police departments nationwide.
    • Training sessions have been planned together with the police to identify stakeholder needs and build the sessions around those needs. A team consisting of the project manager and police staff will carry out the sessions.

Actors involved in the design and implementation of the practice

  • National media campaign on everyday discrimination and bystander interventions.
    • Design, planning and implementation:
      • Non-Discrimination Ombudsman’s communication department
      • a panel of experts in anti-racism, non-discrimination, diversity, media and audio-visual production from minority backgrounds is supporting the process.
    • Dissemination:
      • engage with a broad range of strategic partners from different levels of society to disseminate the messages of the campaign as widely as possible (civil society organisations, municipalities, government, influencers, youth organisations, labour market actors and sports people).
  • Teaching module for secondary schools.
    • Design, planning and implementation:
      • focus groups that include teachers and secondary school students
      • the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman.
    • Dissemination:
      • the Ministry of Culture and Education
      • the Youth Academy.
  • Quality criteria for diversity management in employment, including an e-learning resource.
    • Design, planning and implementation:
      • a workshop was organised with members of the EU Diversity Charter network to work on quality criteria
      • advocacy focus groups on different issues (LGBTIQ+; disability; anti-racism; and trans rights) were set up to review the quality criteria to ensure the intersectionality of the tool.
    • Dissemination:
      • different actors in employment (the Ministry of Economics and Employment, public and private sectors, and municipalities).
  • Training on diversity and non-discrimination for employers and employment counsellors, which includes ensuring employers’ commitments to promoting diversity.
    • Design, planning and implementation:
      • training for employers – a thematic working group was set up to support planning of the training, marketing and dissemination
      • training for employment counsellors – needs assessment and planning of training were carried out together with employment counselling experts to ensure the correct targeting of training.
    • Dissemination:
      • training for employers – open-source material will remain available on the Ministry of Justice’s website and the Finnish Business and Society’s website
      • training for employment counsellors – this will become a permanent training module in the onboarding material of public employment and business services for incoming experts.
  • Mentoring programme that promotes social inclusion for youth from ethnic and religious minority backgrounds by establishing a dialogue between local youth and decision makers.
    • Design and implementation:
      • the concept already existed and was a pilot project of the City of Helsinki; through the project it will be disseminated nationwide.
    • Dissemination:
      • local advisory boards for ethnic relations (of which there are seven)
      • local youth services.
  • Training on non-discrimination and ethnic profiling for police departments nationwide.
    • Design and implementation:
      • the police
      • University of Helsinki’s Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism.
    • Dissemination
      • National Police Board of Finland
      • Police University College.

Monitoring and evaluation

  • National media campaign on everyday discrimination and bystander interventions.
    • Quantitative factors:
      • number of people reached by the campaign (through television, social media, etc.)
      • number of strategic partners, which contributes to disseminating the messages as broadly as possible to different levels of society (civil society, municipalities, influencers, youth organisations, labour market actors and sports arena actors)
      • number of responses to the campaign and the website
      • number of visitors to the campaign website.
    • Qualitative factors:
      • analysis of the responses
      • types of contacts by citizens
      • pop-up questionnaire on the campaign website
      • internal evaluation workshop.
  • Teaching module for secondary schools.
    • Steering committee indicators for the school campaign.
    • Feedback from participants on test/pilot training.
    • Measurement of attitudes before and after training; this involves immediate brief individual data collection.
    • Trainers’ material completed and effective dissemination channel identified.
    • Methodology: feedback forms.
  • Quality criteria for diversity management in employment, including an e-learning resource.
    • A workshop was organised with members of the EU Diversity Charter network to work on quality criteria.
    • Advocacy focus groups on different issues (LGBTIQ+, disability, anti-racism and trans rights) were set up to review the quality criteria to ensure the intersectionality of the tool.
    • Methodology: feedback forms.
  • Training on diversity and non-discrimination for employers and employment counsellors, which included ensuring employers’ commitments to promoting diversity.
    • Number of employers participating in the training sessions.
    • Number of employment counsellors participating in the training sessions.
    • Attitudes and level of knowledge before and after training sessions.
    • Number of future commitments that employers make.
    • All activities implemented and available.
    • Methodology: feedback forms and qualitative analysis of the feedback.
  • Mentoring programme that promotes social inclusion for youth from ethnic and religious minority backgrounds by establishing a dialogue between local youth and decision makers.
    • Number of young people who were recruited for the mentoring programme.
    • Number of seminar participants.
    • Number of decision makers/politicians who participated in the seminar.
    • Interest expressed by different actors (requests for consultation, contacts, etc.)
    • Sustainable local networks and structures developed during the project.
  • Training on non-discrimination and ethnic profiling for police departments nationwide.
    • Number of police officers who were trained during the project.
    • Feedback from participants.
    • The University of Helsinki’s Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism will produce an extensive impact assessment report on both police staff who undergo the training and police staff who do not undergo the training.

Publicly available contact details

Finland, Ministry of Justice (Oikeusministeriö)

All in for Equality (Yhdessä) project web page:
All in for equality (Yhdessä)