On the audiences request I will start writing in english – at least sometimes. When it comes to local politics I doubt it will be of much interest to the international active readers, so I hope you can cope with that it will be written in Finnish or Swedish. It could be a good way of learning the language though :) Those english nativespeakers (as Ian and others) please feel free to correct grammarmisstakes as I know I cannot avoid them, unfortunately.
Im now on the train back from Tammerfors (and yes, I will keep using the swedish names for the cities althought in some cases as Tampere it would be more correct to use the majority language in the city...) anyway, in Tammerfors I met a group of young SU activists. Some of them quite new and some of them has been members already for a longer time. A couple of weeks ago I travelled through the westcoast from Karleby to Kristinestad to meet local branches. (for those who does not know – we have officially 45 local branches in SU! A lot of people to meet and inspire :)) Anyway, on these both trips I've noticed that it is mostly girls that are interested, involved and active. It didn't make a difference if I went up north to Karleby or Pedersöre och to the south to Närpes or as today to Tammerfors rather in the middle of the country – at the most there was 1 male and the rest were girls in the groups. Compared with espcially LYMEC memberorganisations it is the other way around... I wonder why it is like that? Are girls more liberal in Finland? ...Or are they more interested in the society? I doubt that.
Unfortunately no media was interested in our pressrelease on the expelled Cuban students. At least not yet. It is usually like that – when we have some important political messages it is hardly noticed anywhere but when we have something less serious such as our ”legalize snus in the EU” we got both TV, radio, newspapers attention. Everybody wanted to discuss the radical idea of leaglizing snus... (btw you can join the facebook group as well :)) I still expect an answer from the minister of foreign affairs mr Ilkka ”Ike” Kanerva, and hope that he will react on the matter as well. Luckily we haven a representative from SU, our former vice president, Johan Ekman, who will be present at the UNESCO general assembly. Hopefully he will be able to take an active role and bring this issue further.
1 comment:
Hey Minna!
First of all, my deep gratitude for your English posts. I can now add you to my own blogroll at http://bartwoord.wordpress.com !
(did I just covertly promoted my own blog? o, me so narcist!)
With regards to the activity of girls in your organization, I can tell you that I was present at the local assembly of JD here in Groningen last night, and out of 15 people, there were NO girls. It is a big shame and I am not that sure what the reason for it is, though I think it's partly to do with the self-enforcing effect of having already a majority of guys active, slowly crowding out the girls.
Thumbs up for the Cuba statement, by the way!
Cheers,
Bart
Post a Comment