AYY had a significant impact on the activities of the national student unions

Aalto people in powerful positions

The general assembly of the National Union of University Students in Finland elected Chair of AYY Board Tapio Hautamäki as the President of the Union and Aalto’s Frans Cederlöf as a member of the Board. Next year, SYL will renew the strategy for the entire union. Previously, Hautamäki has been responsible for revising AYY’s strategy and political policy paper. Cederlöf has many years of experience of acting in national organisations. He has been active in Svenska Studieförbundet, the umbrella organisation for Swedish-speaking organisations in Finland, and the European Youth Parliament. Currently, Cederlöf serves in Finlands Svenska Skolungdomsförbundet.

AYY Board Member Antti Pentikäinen was elected as the President of the Finnish Student Sports Federation. This year, he has been responsible for social policy, municipal advocacy and sports. Thanks to his contribution, investing in well-being has been included in Aalto University’s new strategy.

Concrete changes for the benefit of students

In the general assembly of the National Union of University Students in Finland, AYY’s representatives actively influenced the union activities for the next year. To ensure improved services for international students, the general assembly approved AYY’s proposal to increase SYL’s translation resources by EUR 3,000. “Many non-Finnish speaking student representatives in the administration are left out when SYL provides current advocacy material only in Finnish. Currently, SYL’s advocacy is not linguistically equal,” AYY’s representative Pyry Huhtanen justifies the increase.

AYY also called for access to continuous learning regardless of an individual’s wealth or employment status. The general assembly approved the addition on the matter to the policy paper of the union. “Many people are self-employed, and it is therefore important that the possible funding model of continuous learning also allows non-salaried workers to update their skills. Light entrepreneurs include students from all fields, ranging from artists to philosophers. Naturally, the unemployed should also have the opportunity to update their skills,” says Minna Mäkitalo, AYY’s representative in the general assembly.  

At the initiative of AYY, SYL will require the Ministry of Education and Culture to communicate in English in 2020, as the Ministry’s goal is to increase the number of international students. Next year, the National Union of University Students in Finland will also have a greater impact on combating the climate crisis. According to AYY’s proposal, this work also takes into account the environmental crisis, that is the human load on the environment and natural resources. At the general assembly of the Finnish Student Sports Federation, the federation declared itself a feminist organisation at the initiative of AYY.