In 2025, nearly 80,000 children and young people practiced their working life skills at Junior Achievement Finland’s (JA) Yrityskylä. Saastamoinen Foundation’s EUR 726,000 support for the years 2025–2027 has made it possible to introduce Finnish sixth and ninth graders to the significance and career opportunities of the cultural sector through Yrityskylä’s Studio Fokus learning module.
Photo: Yrityskylä / Nuorten yrittäjyys ja talous NYT
Awarded as the best education innovation in the world, Yrityskylä is a learning module designed for sixth and ninth graders, which encourages entrepreneurship and introduces students to society, economics, and working life.
Saastamoinen Foundation is a long-standing and significant partner of Yrityskylä. The foundation aims to strengthen young people’s positive belief in the future and highlight the cultural sector as one option for children and young people contemplating their future.
In 2025, over 55,000 sixth graders from 235 Finnish municipalities participated in Yrityskylä Primary School activities, which comprise teacher training, Yrityskylä lessons, and an experiential school day in Yrityskylä’s miniature society. Cultural Centers have been established in all 11 Yrityskylä Primary Schools, where children can work as musicians, artists, and influencers, and in Espoo and Eastern Finland’s Yrityskylä, also as producers.
Yrityskylä Secondary School consists of lessons at school and a competition situation in Yrityskylä’s game arena. In 2025, over 23,500 ninth graders from 195 municipalities were able to try out the gamified learning environment. Young people can compete as management teams, simultaneously practicing cooperation and responsibility sharing, and producing art and cultural events.
Yrityskylä’s 2025 highlights: optimism and recognitions
According to the 2025 NYT Youth Future Report survey, young people’s belief in their own abilities and hope for a better working life has strengthened in recent years. As many as 76% of young people believe they will find a suitable place for themselves in working life, and 57% of young people look forward to working life with enthusiasm.
Yrityskylä’s 2025 highlights also included, for example, the visit of Icelandic President Halla Tómasdóttir and Finnish President Alexander Stubb with their spouses to Espoo’s Yrityskylä Primary School.
Furthermore, the World Economic Forum highlighted Yrityskylä as an example of children’s and young people’s financial literacy as part of Finland’s national financial literacy strategy.
Read more: https://nuortennyt.fi/en/yrityskyla/
