I had the pleasure and privilege to meet with Kynnys twice during my ride through Finland, both in Helsinki and Turku. During our meetings, I learned so much about the situation with accessibility, disability rights, and independent living in Finland. Kynnys Ry, or Threshold Association in English, was founded by a group of disabled students in 1973 as a part of the European independent living movement to promote the human rights of people with disabilities to have full choice and control over their own lives and participate at an equal level in society. Since its foundation, Kynnys has been a huge part of progressing disability rights, legislation and policy, and empowering people with disabilities throughout Finland. Kynnys has a three-prong approach to disability advocacy work:
- Working to support and promote the legal rights of individual people with disabilities and disabled people as a whole throughout Finland
- International development cooperation to strengthen independent living for people with disabilities around the world, especially in partnering developing countries
- Cultural promotion of disability rights and sharing the principles and values of independent living to facilitate value change and fight stigma against disabled people
While Finland, and much of the Nordics, are often thought to be pinnacles of accessibility and disability inclusion, Kynnys knows there is still a lot of work to do for full independent living throughout Finland. For example, one topic that we touched on in both of our meetings was the gap between the progressive legislation in Finland, and the real-world implementation of this legislation for the real-life experience of individual disabled people. Often, people with disabilities, especially those with intellectual disabilities or greater support needs, still end up in unofficial institutions, such as elderly care homes, although they should have the right to live independently within society, and lack of personal assistance remains a big problem. The process to receive personal assistance is long and filled with many forms and bureaucratic steps, which can hinder people who need the assistance from getting it. People with disabilities may find themselves without the personal support they need, and thus lacking freedom and control to exercise their independence and cannot participate in the community. Employment for people with disabilities is also staggeringly low for such a progressive country (Data from EU-SILC indicate an employment rate for persons with disabilities in Finland of 58.3% in 2018, compared to 75.9% for non-disabled persons, resulting in an estimated disability employment gap of approximately 18 percentage points1), with stigma against disabled people by employers still restricting people with disabilities from finding employment even if they have the relevant degree or experience. Finally, hate speech and discrimination against people with disabilities is also a problem in Finland, and anti-inclusion and human rights rhetoric from the political environment in the country may be exacerbating this problem.
This is why the work Kynnys is doing to promote disability rights and independent living in Finland is so important! Kynnys won’t simply accept the image of Finland as a progressive, accessible country, and rather will continue to fight to ensure that this image is actually the reality for disabled people, and work to enshrine true independent living for all Finns with disabilities. As an expert on disability issues and rights, Kynnys also supports individual legal cases of disabled people to receive their equal human rights, as they are entitled within Finnish legislation and the UN convention on the rights of people with disabilities (COPD). Finally, Kynnys fights for accessibility in all aspects of society, including those areas that are so integral to Finnish culture, such as access to Finnish nature, national parks, and wild spaces.
Perhaps the area of Kynnys’s work that most impacted me was disability empowerment. In order to ensure independent living for all people with disabilities to be a reality, people with disabilities themselves need to believe in their ability to live independently and to deserve equal human rights and equal opportunity to participate in society and the community. Kynnys is a powerful peer support group for people with disabilities, and anyone and everyone involved in the independent living movement, to feel seen and heard and to gain personal empowerment to fight as a disability activist. By meeting with the people that make up Kynnys and learning about their impactful work, I have myself become deeply inspired to do my part in fighting for independent living and everyone’s right to choice and control over their lives. Ei mitään meistä ilman meitä! Nothing (about us) without us!
Thank you so much Kynnys for taking the time to meet with me and for teaching me so much about your work, the disability situation in Finland, and the importance of promoting independent living. I will also be sharing the personal stories of some of the inspiring people that make up Kynnys soon. It is a challenging time to be a human rights organization, even in Finland, so I would encourage especially my Finnish friends and followers to check out Kynnys and support and share their work (see their homepage here: https://kynnys.fi/).