Helsinki is a good place for children and young people
Hi there, person under the age of 18! We at the City of Helsinki are working every day to ensure that your rights are fulfilled every day in your life. We want Helsinki to be a child-friendly city where every child and young person has the right to safe growth and development. We promote non-discrimination, equality and human rights in everything that the City does.
Helsinki is taking part in UNICEF’s Child Friendly Municipalities initiative. For the past three years, we have been working towards making Helsinki an even better place of residence for you and all other children and young people in our city. We are committed to working towards the following objectives in our Child Friendly Municipalities development work:
- We educate the City’s employees on the rights of children and young people.
- We assess the impacts of the City’s decisions from the perspective of the rights of children and young people.
- We prevent bullying and promote communality at schools and educational institutions.
- We listen to children and young people and make sending feedback easy.
- We increase children’s and young people’s sense of safety in our city.
Helsinki Youth Council is tasked with ensuring that young people’s voices are heard in the City’s decision-making processes. Members of this influencer group of young people in Helsinki have brought up concerns about adults not always knowing children’s and young people’s rights, not providing information about them or not being able to guide children and young people forward if they feel that their rights have been infringed. For this reason, the City’s employees have been educated on children’s rights.
Children and young people can submit initiatives, brainstorm ideas, implement their ideas and take part in various activities. Adults are responsible for ensuring that children’s and young people’s rights are fulfilled. Helsinki has been developing its operations together with UNICEF. As a result of this development work, UNICEF has granted Helsinki the Child Friendly City award. This award obligates us to do things in an even more child-friendly manner in the future as well, together with children and young people.