In big cities, people are watching with interest how Turku’s decision to give all the city’s young people money to pay for their hobbies works. Statistical information is needed before we can get more excited about the model.
Turku the opening of the city to support sports activities for young people arouses interest in other big cities.
Turku plans to offer a hobby card worth a few hundred euros to every 7-19-year-old in the city in 2025.
The purpose of this system, also known as the Icelandic model, is to support especially low-income families. The card could be used to pay, for example, the season fees of a sports club.
Turku plans to budget around three million euros for the hobby card, says the city’s director of sports services Markus Kalmari .
However, not everything is new money for sports.
“Over a period of time, the clubs’ operating grant for that age group, which is 400,000 euros, will drop off,” says Kalmari.
In the longer term, the city may also not build some sports facilities itself. It reduces the number of investments and frees up more money to finance the hobby card.
“Overall, we are raising the stakes,” says Kalmari.
in Finland the Finnish model of hobby supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture is also in use, which the cities supplement with their own activities.
The goal of the Finnish model is to organize a free hobby for every child and young person during the school day.
The opening of Turku has not gone unnoticed in other big cities. The results in Turku are being watched with interest.
Tampere youth service director Jukka Etu-Seppälä states that the Turku hobby card is a good idea, worth trying.
“Anything that gets children and young people active to move and do is a big saving for society in the future,” he says.
Tampere already has a Tampere Junior development project that works with the same ideology as the Turku hobby card.
Part of the project is the Nuorisopassi application for middle school students, where young people have a balance loaded into the application for sports and cultural activities.
The project ends at the end of the year and then moves into basic education.
“Our goal is to get young people moving in the long term,” says Etu-Seppälä.
Espoo’s sports service manager Markku Sistonen.
Espoo sports services manager responsible for sports services Markku Sistonen says that the city maintains its own policy based on the activities of the clubs.
Espoo supports clubs and other service providers for participating in the realization of the hobby path.
“Every young person in Espoo should have at least one favorite hobby,” says Sistonen.
“We want to encourage the organization of clubs for those young people who don’t really want to practice groups, which could serve as a gateway to club activities permanently.”
According to Sistonen, Espoo is closely monitoring how the Turku hobby card works.
“We will follow where the Turku model leads. We will draw more conclusions later.”
Sistonen however, ponders the functionality of hobby cards in terms of long-term hobby.
“It’s interesting to see what happens in the Turku model, when the money runs out. Does the model lead to a permanent hobby or is it just an experiment and tasters?”
Sports Director of Helsinki Tarja Loikkanen praises Turku for making a brave decision. He is grateful that one big city is going to try this kind of model.
“After hearing some results about it, whether it has increased the physical activity of children and young people, it is worth thinking about it more broadly,” states Loikkanen.
“We still don’t know if the hobby card will be used by those families who would already do it anyway. But any incentive element that would increase children’s and young people’s hobby is a positive thing, especially for those for whom the cost of hobby is starting to become an obstacle.”
Helsinki sports director Tarja Loikkanen photographed in the stands of the traditional Kisahalli.
A defector points out that implementing a project similar to the Icelandic model in Helsinki would be many times more expensive than in Turku due to the population.
He is looking forward to the results, but is not yet ready to draw any major conclusions.
The position of other large cities towards Turku’s model is therefore largely the same: we monitor and observe, but statistical information is needed before we can become more enthusiastic about the model.
Also the sports director of the city of Vantaa Brother Matti Kallislahti follows Turku’s activities from the sidelines with interest.
A similar experiment has not been planned in Vantaa either. However, Kallislahti does not rule out the idea, if the practice works well in Turku.
“When good experiences are created, they are openly shared with others,” says Kallislahti.
Kallislahti praises Turku’s hobby cards as a good opening to the whole, a wider coverage of ways to increase participation in physical activity.
“Time will tell how the model works, but I am confident that Turku’s expertise is enough to move it forward.”
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