Hi! I’m a fairly new member of ENIEC Jukka Keronen, a 61-year-old Bachelor of Social Sciences from Espoo, Finland’s second largest city. I studied at the University of Jyväskylä, where I majored in social policy. My career mainly consists of working in third sector organizations. In 1989, I started as the secretary of the local workers’ association in Jyväskylä, and since then I have worked for the NGO´s. However, there was a six-year period in between, during which I supported myself as a freelance writer and communications entrepreneur. My most recent duties have been as the executive director of the HIV Foundation, the lottery association Kultareuna ry and the Finnish Spine Association. I worked for the HIV Foundation for ten years, during which I also had the opportunity to familiarise myself with the situation of vulnerable population groups in Finland. We mainly worked with immigrants and sexual and gender minorities. At that time, I also had the opportunity to be one of the co-writers of the three most recent national HIV strategies. Now, to my great pleasure, I have been able to promote equality issues for the elderly in the Moni-ikä project (2024–2026) of The Union for Senior Services VALLI, in which we promote the equality of the elderly and the elderly. The project takes a broad approach to the diversity of older people from the perspectives of languages, cultures, religions and sexual and gender minorities. We do our best to make the needs of ageing minorities visible in Finnish discussion, education and decision-making. Multi-age is a collaborative project, which I am very happy about. The work is carried out in cooperation with organisations representing minorities, which achieves higher quality and more sustainable results. Outside of working hours, my hobbies include Finnish baseball coaching, philately and writing. As someone who lives in a bicultural household, I also have learning Thai as an eternal project.
Jukka Keronen, member of ENIEC
