Pledge 12 – Turku

On 30 January 2019, Turku became the 12th city to sign a pledge to the European Pillar of Social Rights. Mayor Minna Arve signed a strong commitment to principle 3 on equal opportunities and principle 4 on active support to employment.

To tackle health and socio-economic inequalities, Turku is committed to promote equal opportunities of youth and people living in all neighbourhoods, especially in the most deprived areas, by:

• Piloting new operating models to improve access to city services and narrow the welfare gap and preventing social exclusion.
• Providing new participatory tools and training to city officials for involving people from all neighbourhoods in planning and decision-making of city measures.

To provide active support to employment, Turku invests €20 million annually to reach 2,000 unemployed people each year with tailored support:

• Providing individual assessment and personalised support for job search, training and re-qualification (or up-skilling).
• Ensuring an employment service point that includes a centre of excellence on employment services for immigrants.
• Delivering Youth Guarantee schemes to ensure that each young person under 25 and recently graduated people under 30 can have a job, traineeship or continued education or training.

Turku’s Mayor Minna Arve said: “A stronger social Europe is only possible if people have equal opportunities to health and well-being. In Turku, we invest our efforts to make our city a good place to live and succeed together. Our special attention is to encourage young people, vulnerable groups and people in deprived neighbourhoods to participate in our city”.