Aims

The aim is to create a permanent, national children’s organ, the Finnish Children’s Parliament, thereby having a positive impact on the establishment of local parliamentary activities for children.

Within our activities, children and adults work together to develop new means for discourse between children and adult decision-makers, and to create evolving methods for children to have an influence within our society.

By enabling children's voices to be heard and supporting children's growth, we aim to support the development of independent and independently-thinking citizens who believe that they can affect the society around them. Our activities endeavour to provide as many Finnish children as possible with the opportunity to experience co-operative participation and influence, as well as to enhance children's media, democracy and lobbying skills.

Methods

A virtual parliament building has been constructed online for the use of the Finnish Children's Parliament. This virtual building provides representatives with a place, independent of time and location, to interact and further their activities. 

The Board and Committees of the Children’s Parliament have met weekly online in chat rooms, and have discussed issues and prepared for future plenary sessions. The children have carried this work out using written agendas. The Chairmen of the Board and Committees have begun to gradually assume their roles in leading the Committees, the Board and the Parliament.

The members of the Children’s Parliament have discussed issues online in their own discussion forums, responded to surveys submitted by decision-makers, and held a two-week long online plenary session. The Board and all of the children have also met in person, and the next physical plenary session for all the children involved will be held in Jyväskylä, Finland.

The children have various online tools at their disposal. The website enables a representative of the Children’s Parliament or any Finnish child to present the Children's Parliament with an idea or an initiative through the ‘initiative channel' service. In nearly six months, more than 150 new initiatives have been submitted.

In order to promote their issues, children gather information, utilise the media, their own online media, initiatives and statements, local activities, addresses, and surveys, and they also define what they feel is the right method for acknowledging children's matters and interests. (One example of this is their definition of a positive recess environment.) The children's own means of getting their messages across, such as poems, are also incorporated. The children have a USB flash drive containing a portfolio program for the presentation and drafting of proposals.

The Children’s Parliament Association has 3 full-time and 2 part-time employees, as well as more than 60 adult volunteers carrying out support work.

In the early phases of our activities, the Ministry of Education set a target of 50 towns for participation. Altogether, however, the Parliament attracted representatives from 224 of Finland’s 381 municipalities. The founding meeting was held in Tampere, Finland on 9 November 2007.The meeting was attended by nearly 400 children and their escorts. The first seminar for the Board was attended by 19 of the Board’s 21 members.

The children prepared for the first plenary session online during the spring. During the plenary session, which was held during 17–30 April, the children contributed close to one hundred topics for discussion and more than 1,000 comments. The Children’s Parliament will present its first official initiatives and contentions to the Finnish Parliament on 4 June 2008.

The decisions made by children concern the practical aspect of children's rights. For example, children create definitions and models for parliamentary activities, suggest the best manner for implementing the nutritional recommendations proposed by adults for the Finnish school system, and demand that adults propose recommendations to prevent bullying and teasing in the schools.

Within six months from the establishment of the Finnish Children’s Parliament, the official connection between the adult Parliament and the Finnish Children’s Parliament is already apparent.