Connecting Men and Stronger Local Communities

As a result of CoMe Strong the local communities participated in the project have experienced several improvements. Participation of inactive men has increased and the social inclusion of them has multiplied. CoMe Strong 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 in the labour market. As a concrete result of CoMe Strong project men in age group 45 – 75 have been encouraged to be the first CoMe Strong volunteers and they have done small and concrete projects in their own communities with other inactive men of the same age.
The first CoMe Strong club volunteers have been trained locally in their own communities. During the training they have gotten readiness to activate inactive men, who have risks of well-being and exclusion. All the men in clubs have got skills which are related to searching and doing different projects with local actors in the community. Training has continued all the time during the project. Training needs of men have been met in different situations. Border crossing exchange of knowledge and skills has happened also during the summer days organized both in Finland and in Estonia. Every participating local community has established at least one CoMe Strong club which has regular meetings with recreational activities and small useful projects going on with the different actors in the community.

CoMe Strong clubs have documented and presented their projects and other activities by filming video clips. Men have done the clips together with experts. The clips have been collected together and made for one document which describes the whole CoMe Strong process. This video document has been used as a main tool to disseminate the results of the project to other interested stakeholders to promote the transferability of the results. Clubs have very important role in the dissemination work.