Development Cooperation

SYL has a long history of development co-operation and solidarity work. For example until 1993 SYL used to run scholarship programmes for students from developing countries to study in Finland. SYL has had co-operation with many different organisations around the world like SWAPO and ANC.

At the moment SYL co-operates with the association for Maya University Students in Guatemala (AMEU) in running training seminars for Maya students and in Zambia with the Kanyama Youth Programme Trust (KYPT) in running vocational education for young people and especially women.

In Finland SYL has an important role in keeping up a discussion on development issues among the students. SYL is also a member of development organisations such as the Service Centre for Development Co-operation and is e.g. a founding member of the Refugee Advice Centre.

Historical Overview on SYL’s Development Co-operation

Where Coffee Grows
SYL’s Development Co-operation Work from Past to Present

There are many who do not know that the very roots of SYL (the national union of Finnish students), the 80 years old organisation of 117 000 members, actually has it’s very roots in internationalism. SYL was founded in 1921 so that also Finnish students could participate in the international meetings of national students unions.

Also the development co-operation work of SYL was begun early, already almost 60 years ago. And many of the familiar faces of today’s politics, such as Finland’s Foreign Minster or the President, were the active engines behind it all.

Where it all begun

After the WW II SYL wanted to develop it’s co-operation with international student aid and relief organisations. Therefore KYST, the International Student Aid of Finland was founded in 1946. In the very beginning Finland was actually rather the receiving than the donating organisation: SYL’s home for handicapped students and SYL’s health office were donated equipment from abroad. However, already at the end of the 1940’s, the organisation was actively participating in international relief and aid operations. In the 1950’s, for example, KYST financing Summer courses and excursions to foreign student scholars.

Meanwhile the World University Service (WUS) was founded in 1952. SYL didn’t want to fall behind the new developments and re-organised the KYST into a Finnish branch of WUS, also known as the FINWUS. This year can be considered as the founding year of Finnish students development co-operation.

In the beginning the work was mostly humanitarian and catastrophe help. When the damns in Holland broke and flooded the country, SYL were helping students who had suffered from the catastrophe. SYL were also giving out scholarships to students: one of the Hungarian refugee students that was given a SYL scholarship is still working as a doctor in Finland.

The main attention of WUS, however, was directed towards Asian and Africans students and the improving of their situation. The Finnish students organised seminars and were looking for ways to develop aid projects. The very first seminar was about the Asian and Africans students problems.

Phase Two – Looking for New Ways to Get Things Organised

After FINWUS SYL still wanted to continue and develop the work begun by it. Therefore yet another new organisation, YKA, was founded in 1961. Adopted a new policy where students could pay a small, voluntary fee to development co-operation together with their students’ union membership fee.

In 1968 YKA was abolished and SYL undertook all YKA’s activities. However, the managing of YKA’s affairs was so poor that even the official abolishment was not completed and therefore according to Finnish state regulations the organisation still exists to date. YKA’s become SYL’s “official paper-organisation”.

Political World

SYL had “Inherited” from YKA three scholars from West-Africa, Kenya and India. In 1968 SYL hired it’s first secretary of international affairs and the following year the Annual Congress discussed whether the voluntary fee for development co-operation should be made compulsory. The proposal did not pass, but never-the-less, numerous students’ unions adopted the idea for the next ten years.

In 1969 SYL’s working group completed a survey on developing countries economical and political situation. The survey: “RIISTÄÄ underdeveloped countries” was published in 1970.

In the beginning of 1971 SYL joined in the IUS (International Union of Students). Together with IUS SYL organised a conference on “Students and African Liberation movement.” The entire 1970’s was the politically most radical era of SYL’s history. Instead of actual development co-operation, SYL’s work concentrated more solidarity campaigns. There were solidarity campaigns with Vietnam, Chile, Greece, the Soviet Union etc.

From Solidarity Campaigns Towards Development Co-operation

In 1975 The Finnish Foreign Ministry begun the financial support of the development co-operation projects of non-governmental organisations. This was a very important step to many Finnish NGO’s. Also SYL seized using the term “solidarity” and replaced it again with the term: development co-operation, or development aid, as it was called back then, and even launched some new types of projects.

In between the years 1975 and 1992 SYL dispersed material, posters, leaflets, brochures, equipment etc., all mainly about healthcare and education, to the following organisations:
SWAPO, Namibia
PAIGC, Guinea Bissau
FRELIMO, Mozambique
MPLA, Angola
Pro-UNEP, Portugal
POFNE, Cyprus
CPFUCH and UNED, Chile
FEU, Uruguay
The Health centre founded by Guatemalan students
ANC, South-Africa
ZAPU, Zimbabwe
UNEV, Vietnam
The national unions of students in Colombia, Uruguay and Bolivia
GUPS, Palestine
AGEUS, El Salvador
UNEN, Nicaragua
Dar-es-Salaams University Press, Tanzania

Many of the above were national liberation organisations.

In 1976 the Congress decided that it is necessary to create a proper development co-operation fund to the SYL with real rules and statutes. In the same year the very first of SYL’s development co-operation promotion posters and brochures were printed.

In 1981 SYL organised a large-scale campaign to raise funds for development co-operation. Money was also collected from the ministries personnel and from all SYL’s co-operation organisation and associations in Finland. The campaign received a lot of publicity. The same year it was also organised a clothes collecting campaign for SWAPO’s refugee camps in Angola. The result was a hefty 31 tons of clothes.

SYL organised seminars, invited guest from e.g. ANC and SWAPO and even organised work brigades to pick coffee beans in Nicaragua or build houses in Nazareth. In the 1980’s several Finnish experts where sent as development co-operation workers to Africa and central America.