The set of work shops in the Fair Sex project were updated and improved during the year, and has drawn a lot of attention among high school youth and practitioners inside and outside of Åland.
With the ending of 2014, the Fair Sex project has finalised its three year project period. With two persons employed, an intern and three persons employed on an hourly basis the project could finalize its original goals. A central part of the work has been to develop a quality assurance for the improved workshops. Assessments made by work shop participants as well as work shop leaders have been the basis for the improvement and, in addition, an outside area expert has reviewed the material and given comments. An important part of the updating has been to clarify what can be described as ”grey zones” and also to clarify a norm critical approach. Also, new images have been commissioned from cartoonist Sara Elgeholm in order to make visible some more themes than were initially included.
As in previous years, Fair Sex workshops have been held in all classes in grade two in the Åland Lyceum as well as in the Katapult Youth Group, the Folk High School, and Yrkestränings-programmet (YTP), an upper secondary high school for youth with intellectual disabilities. Totally 48 workshops were held during 2014. For the teachers and other staff at the different schools, a successive three-year programme was created, basically designed with a broad training the first year, an equality training the second year, and the third year was framed so as to respond to particular needs and interests expressed by the different staff groups.
In the Swedish speaking parts of Finland, the organization ”De Ungas Akademi”, Academy of the Youth is active and the Fair Sex project started cooperation with the Academy, thus being able to reach out to young members of this group as well. Four workshop trainers were trained in this region of Finland and four pilot workshops were organized by the Fair Sex staff in the Grankulla school. The Academy of the Youth plans to include the Fair Sex project into their 2015 workshop offers.
The set of work shops in the Fair Sex project were updated and improved during the year, and has drawn a lot of attention among high school youth and practitioners inside and outside of Åland.
Finally, the Fair Sex project has participated in trainings and conferences in mainland Finland as well as in Russia during 2014. The expansion of the Fair Sex project into mainland Finland’s Swedish speaking regions was made possible due to a grant from the Finnish Ministry of Education. The local project activities on Åland Islands were covered by a grant from the Local Government of Åland.
