The human rights -focused cultural event that is Helsinki Pride Week has this year become a Pride Month, which begins on the 1st of June 2022. Employees, volunteers and partners of the Helsinki Pride community organise over 100 events over the course of the month. Everything culminates in the Pride Parade and park picnic on the 2nd of July.
This is Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland TEK's third year as an official Helsinki Pride partner. TEK organises a TEK Academy webcast titled Coffee break in the closet? [Kahvitauko kaapissa?] on the 15th of June at 14 o’clock. The event is open to all. In the webcast, TEK’s Research Manager Susanna Bairoh presents results from studies on how lgbtiq+ students view working life. Expertise panelists discuss why working life should be more equal and non-discriminatory. The event is held in Finnish.
The goal of Helsinki Pride is to promote understanding and communality, and to support individuals in facing their own unconscious prejudices.
– We believe that by respecting yourself you can also respect others. This year we want to bring people together, after these past two years, to meet each other, to discuss, learn and share about themselves with others, says Panu Mäenpää, chair of the Helsinki Pride community in a statement on the 4th of May.
According to Helsinki Pride, the partners of the event demonstrate how companies and organisations can support change towards a more equal world.
– We at TEK wish to be the builders of a better working life for everyone. We know that members of sexual and gender minorities face more obstacles in their careers, some of which need more than time to remove. For this reason we are a Helsinki Pride partner for the third time. We are making the voice of TEK members heard in the creation of a more sustainable working life, says TEK’s Director of Public Affairs Juhani Nokela.
– Meeting each other as we are is a way of reducing prejudices and creating something better, Nokela adds.
