International Activities

International Activities in Kallaveden lukio

Kallavesi Senior High School got the UNESCO school status in 1984, thanks to our active international relations. UNESCO, The United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture, does not support UNESCO schools financially, but European UNESCO schools link and co-operate together via UNESCO’s Associated Schools Project Network (ASPnet), which is a global network of more than 8.500 educational institutions in 180 countries.

The UN core values like tolerance, justice and respect for diversity are part of our everyday school work.

International activities is one of our fields of specialization. Students who take part in different international projects get credits for participating in them. A group of teachers and students is responsible for planning and carrying out our international projects. Every year we have plenty of international guests in different events and classes alike.  We celebrate the UN Day on 24^th October when we inform our first year students about our international activities and have international guests. We are also a United Nations school.

The team responsible for co-ordinating international activities in 2023 – 2024: The chair of the team is Eija Venäläinen and the members are   Vinski Kevärmetsä, Elisa Lukka, Annulotta Marjanen, Eero Ruokolainen and Jaana Räisänen. The student members are Inga Valli and Emma Suhonen.

Our international activities have taken various forms during the past decades and we have had twin schools in several coutries. Gymnasium Himmelsthur in Hildesheim, Germany has been our twin school since 1982 and our co-operation is still very active. Another European twin school is in Desenzano Del Garda, Italy. We have taken part in several EU projects as well as Nordplus Junior together with Danes and Estonians.

The student body has very actively co-operated with Taksvärkki ry  – Operation Day’s Work Finland for years. Operation a Day’s Work (ODW) Finland is a non-governmental organization (NGO) whose objective is to improve the living conditions and promote the human rights of children and young people in developing countries and to encourage Finnish young people towards global solidarity. Our students take part in Operation Day’s Work yearly, and we donate their earnings to help children and young people in developing coutries.

We also offer courses were students can study for example the UNESCO World Heritage sites, developing countries, different cultures in Africa or the cultural diversity in the United States. A course where the Italian language and Italian art heritage are combined has been arranged a few times. Here you can see our student in Florence, Italy.