Finland

INTRY is a local and regional organization aiming to prevent and fight against young people dropping out of society. The basic principles of the organization behind all activities are respecting diversity, safe environment, equality of all and respect for the young.

We wanted to find out how they do this extremely valuable work, and thus organized a visit to their center in Iisalmi.

• This organization has its roots in a so-called Youth Bus in 1975, which was created to reach also the rural youngsters in the times when the young people started to have organized get-together activities and premises in the towns. The bus visiting in the remote villages of Upper Savo Region turned out to be a great success, and in 1987 the organization got its present form, and they started to run a youth cafe in Iisalmi and built 26 apartments for young people (18 to 29 yrs) to rent.

Thousands of years before plastic was invented all the necessities in the household were made of wood. Different trees were used for their own purposes, and also the age and the season of harvesting them could be taken into account.

Our students were able to carve really nice logs, and make really fitting joints to the corners!

After the walls are ready, one needs a roof.

There are as many designs as there are builders, so also our students made a very different kind of roofs:

And now our beautiful log-house is ready!

Knitting with the needles is not purely a Finnish invention, but it is something very much loved here. We cannot imagine life in our cold climate without woollen knitted socks, sweaters or hats. Now everybody can knit, and we prefer wooden or plastic needles (our grandmothers used terrible and noisy metal needles in the 1900’s). The earliest woollen socks ever found in Finland (14th century) were not made with modern knitting needles, but with one big needle doing turning stiches. The later technique using several long needles spread thru Europe slowly during the centuries, originating probably from the Arabs. The modern way of knitting is much faster than using only one needle, and allows very versatile ways of producing clothing.