Connecting Men and Stronger Local Communities

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CoMe Strong aims to activate inactive men (aged 45-75), especially those who have risk of social exclusion. In addition, project promotes to improve the well-being of men and strives to give men skills and knowledge useful in private life but also in the labour market. All actions will be done in local level in order to build up stronger local communities. Implementation starts with local kick-off events in which active local men are recruited as volunteers to take initial responsibility of the CoMe Strong club actions. Those men are then encouraged and trained to activate passive local men to join the clubs. Local clubs will have regular meetings with recreational and/or training activities. In addition, clubs will carry out small projects for the local community. Projects can be anything the local community benefits from and men can accomplish (e.g. school fence painting, freezing local ice rink or fixing children’s playground). These small projects create new networks between men and the local community and promote stronger coherence. CoMe Strong clubs from Finland and Estonia meet each other in the summer days for experience sharing and for mutual learning. Clubs document their activities with the help of experts by filming short video-clips for communication purposes. As a result of CoMe Strong the local communities have experienced several improvements. Participation of inactive men has increased and the social inclusion of them has multiplied. Clubs have created many networks in the local communities and men are active participants in those. In addition to increased well-being and social inclusion, participating men have also learnt skills useful also in the labour market. Partner consortium (TUAS, UT and Aurala) is cooperating closely with local communities, for example municipalities and NGOs, so that they can carry out implementation in the grass-root level. Engagement of them also promotes sustainability of the results.

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