Mark your calendar for October 29th from 6-8 pm. The event will be held in Seinäjoki, but the exact location is still open. Speakers at the event will be the chair of the Women's Readiness Association, MP Paula Risikko, and intelligence and security expert Saana Nilsson, as well as the vicar of Seinäjoki parish, Ari Auranen.
More and more often we hear at preparation evenings held in villages that "We came to listen to what we need to be prepared for!" This sentence, with its emphasis, conveys a growing concern about a security threat coming from beyond our country's borders.
The work carried out in villages increases the knowledge and skills of those living in sparsely populated areas to prepare for disruptions. Preparation is necessary, whether the cause of the disruption is a technical fault, human error or weather conditions. Storm damage, power outages, water supply disruptions, and disruptions to mobile phone networks and internet connections are risk factors in our everyday lives, for which community-level preparedness measures are also available.
Finland is being targeted by systematically produced disinformation, which aims to undermine society from within by causing a sense of insecurity, the escalation of opinions, and distrust of authoritative and official news sources. This has highlighted the need to increase and strengthen the provision of reliable and up-to-date information in our operations.
The Leader groups in South Ostrobothnia have been working together with the authorities and the third sector to improve the overall safety of the villages in our region for 10 years. During that time, changes have occurred in our security environment that have awakened the people of South Ostrobothnia to the issue of preparedness.
The goal of the regional conference on preparedness is to strengthen up-to-date knowledge, “What do we need to prepare for?” – or do we? By preparing, we manage risks – with knowledge, we strengthen citizens' trust and mental resilience to crises.