Lahti Parish Group’s afternoon club activities for schoolchildren will be renewed – fewer places, but the activities will be free of charge

The boy is playing — The afternoon clubs for schoolchildren run by the Lahti Parish Group will now have three locations, with a total capacity of around 60 children.

The congregations will no longer have a contractual partnership with the City of Lahti for the organisation of after-school activities.

The Church Council of the Lahti Parish Association has rejected a grant agreement with the City of Lahti concerning after-school activities for schoolchildren.

One of the reasons why the congregation is giving up the grant agreement with the city is that the employees have found the work to be burdensome and it has not been possible to run the activities everywhere in the congregation’s own premises.

So far, the parish group has been a contracted partner of the city in the after-school clubs, and over 100 children have participated in the afternoon clubs run by the parishes. Afternoon activities have taken place in Ahtiala, Karisto, Launee and Kasakkamäki.

Part of the old arrangement is also abandoned because the afternoon activities have been unpriced.

In the future, the congregation will maintain a new kind of club activity for grades 1 and 2 as their own activities. Plans include forming groups of about twenty people in Ahtiala, Karisto and Laune, so the number of children involved in club activities would be slightly reduced.

This would be an experiment starting next August where children who are registering would not charge a fee. Registrations are expected to be accepted in May.

According to Reetta Kalteenmäki, Education and Family Director, club activities would not be offered a snack.

However, for the congregation, the arrangement is more economically expensive than the current afternoon club activities, as state aid and tuition fees, among other things, are eliminated.

The Lahti Parish Union is also considering ways to increase children’s hiking and camp activities, as demand, especially for summer camps, has been high.

– We hope that we will be able to organize more camps in the coming years when the employee resource is released elsewhere, says Reetta Kalteenmäki, Director of Education and Family Affairs.

The camp activities in Upila have been transferred to other parish centers and the most camps are now at the renovated Siikaniemi Course Center. Heinäsaari and Luomaniemi are also in use.