We wanted to strenghten and increase the knowledge and competencies of our staffs especially in the themes of dialogue and social sustainability - inclusion, diversity, receptivity, accessibility, participation, civil activity and engagement - and different forms of cooperation in association work. We also wished to gain new perspectives and operative models to respond to the changing situation in our organisations. We wanted to gain ideas, knowledge, skills and methods about building a dialogue in different situations with different people, to promote our awareness and understanding on receptivity and accessibility when working with associations and diverse individuals and to find out what kind of support is needed in questions of inclusion and diversity; how to enhance participation, also with groups that are considered hard-to-reach; how to create places for cultural activities and to practice democracy in everyday life through culture; gain knowledge of supporting process management methods for e.g. boards of the associations and experiences of new ways and approaches of cooperation with municipalities.
We saw needs of increased competencies of our staffs who work with collaboration with associations, member organizations and other actors of civil society. The base of our work in study centres is to support civic activity, democracy and participation, especially with our member associations. Our task is to provide them skills, tools and knowledge in different forms of educative actions. In our operating environment, significant changes are taking place at various levels: changes in funding and growing demands of quality in the state level; changes of participation and attitudes in third sector activities; our target groups are changing and challenges of inclusion are growing, as the diversity in societies is widening. The population in rural areas is aging and declining, which is posing challenges to the continuity of association activities. These changes create needs for new approaches and updated knowledge in our work, as our member associations are facing the same changes. As the situation, changes and our tasks are quite similar in Sweden and Finland, transnational exchange of ideas, experiences and methods would be useful.