Hi,

 

We have now finalized the Youth Forum actions in Finland. A week ago we visited the City of Kuopio and delivered thank you letters to all participants there. The school class of Kalevala koulu had done a marvelous job by answering the Youth Forum questions, writing essays on the subject and producing a video. We were truly impressed by their work. Also three classes in Lapland in Northern Finland have answered the questions and discussed the issues. We are really grateful their contributions. Great work!

 

The picture here is us in Kuopio handing out the minister's thank you letter.

 

 

 

Now we are delivering the OECD with the Finnish results and waiting for the results of all the participating countries. 

This week there will also be a meeting of the OECD countries in Paris about the ministerial meeting preparations. There of course also the Youth Forum and Youth Dialogue proceedings will be discussed.

 We are now less than two months away from the ministerial and the work around it is and has already sometime been a daily business at our office. Tomorrow will include a meeting with information officers of some ministries discussing the information issues around the meeting, it will be followed by our team’s meeting where we will go through the deadlines of the different parts of the preparatory work, then the day will include contacting people about the organisation of the Sudy tour that we organise for the young people coming from other countries to Helsinki for the Youth Dialogue. Of course the ministerial is not our only job at the moment. At the same time we are running also the reform work that we usually do with many new things starting with the new Government’s flagship projects. From the beginning of August we have also undergone a change in our own organisation. So days are busy but to work with the OECD ministerial is really nice for many reasons. People working in our team are truly fantastic and it is a joy to work with them. The fact that the subject of the ministerial “inclusive growth” is very topical makes it an even more fascinating task.

 

So a week full of work around the ministerial and looking forward to the meeting in Paris.

 

Katju