On September 18, 2025, five coordination projects supporting European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) development initiatives came together for a Timeout dialogue (Visit an external site. The link opens in a new tab.). The participating projects were Creative Net, Better working life! – National coordination project for the development of working life (Visit an external site. The link opens in a new tab.), SOILA-coordination project (Social innovations in child welfare – coordination project) (Visit an external site. The link opens in a new tab.), Coordination for Equal Inclusion (Visit an external site. The link opens in a new tab.), and Coordinating the participation and inclusion of children, young people and families. The discussion focused on equality and gender equity in development work.
Coordination projects play a key role in promoting equality and equity
The aim of the Timeout dialogue was to deepen shared understanding of how the ESF+ horizontal principles—equality, non-discrimination, and gender equity—can be promoted both within the coordination projects themselves and in collaboration with the supported development projects. While equality and equity are present in all human-centered activities, they may receive limited attention in everyday work. The discussion highlighted the important role of coordination projects in keeping these themes visible and actively advancing them.
“Our task is to make difficult issues visible. We must not sweep under the rug what is hard to talk about or challenging to promote. Even one person can make small changes, and together we can always achieve more. Through the projects, these themes can be advanced in concrete ways,” was noted in the final joint discussion.
Individual encounters and critical self-reflection advance equality
The discussions explored equality and equity from the perspectives of individual encounters, as well as the development of services and public spaces. Promoting equality requires a willingness to critically examine one’s own attitudes, accept feedback, and change practices when necessary. Development work must also pay attention to the competence of project staff and professionals, for example in themes related to anti-racism.
The coordination projects also possess diverse expertise related to equality, which should be shared and utilized across projects. Once again, pausing for a joint discussion was seen as valuable: the connection between the coordination projects was noticeably strengthened during the afternoon, making future collaboration even easier.