Greetings from the equality sector 2024

HYY’s equality sector has been kept busy this year especially by the update of the University’s Equality and Diversity Plan and improving the accessibility of the Student Union’s activities and facilities. In this blog post, Member of the Board Viena Pentikäinen and Specialist Tiia Niemi describe the year’s activities.

In terms of advocacy work, we have focused on the update of the University’s Equality and Diversity Plan. The plan describes the current situation and measures the University will take 2025–2028 to promote equality in the University community. The update process has been renewed this year to ensure that all members of the University community have a better opportunity to take part in drafting the plan. People could submit feedback and ideas on the plan during both the spring and autumn terms.

We have influenced the plan especially through the University’s Equality and Diversity Committee. We participated in meetings and workshops, emphasising the importance of matters such as communication, training and accessibility. Without communication and training, students would not have information about the University’s equality activities or instructions. We would also like the University to pay more attention to accessible facilities and teaching. Applying for individual arrangements, for instance, still places too much strain on students, and this could be reduced by adopting more diverse completion methods.

In terms of developing HYY’s internal activities, we have focused especially on promoting accessibility in addition to annual training events for organisations and the meetup to join the Pride Parade together. The Student Union’s Board and personnel received training on neurodiversity and taking it into account in our activities. We have also paid attention to the theme in our events and created instructions for further improvements to increase accessibility.

The accessibility of organisational premises has continued to raise a lot of discussion this year. The New Student House, for instance, is a protected historic building, which means that making major changes is not permitted or requires negotiations with the Finnish Heritage Agency. We got a new lift for the New Student House but it is too small for people using an electric wheelchair due to requirements set by the agency. We have also been plagued by maintenance problems related to the lift this year. Even though we are not able to make the lift more accessible, we have tried to promote accessibility in the New Student House in other ways. For instance, we have measured the doorways and passageways in the premises to be able to publish more detailed accessibility information in the future.

Our plans for the rest of the year include assessing HYY’s Equality Plan in relation to this year’s activities. Most of the measures in the plan have been achieved either entirely or partially. Even though we have made some good progress this year, there is always more work for next year as well!

Tiia Niemi

Specialist in charge of equality

Viena Pentikäinen

Member of the Board in charge of equality