Media and information literacy are critical skills in today’s society. In the 1950s Finnish filmmakers felt educators and parents need support when the children are facing new media. Metka was started with this mandate. Today Metka leads the way of how to enjoy and make use of all various media, including the newest ones: social, educational, virtual and artificial. Thousands of teachers, library staff, youth workers and other adults concerned with life-long film and media education engage with us and learn practical skills in media education, multiliteracy and cultural creative work.
Metka connects film and media artists and educators and brings programming to schools, kindergartens, libraries, cultural centres and old people’s homes. Metka produces educational material and other pedagogical material. Metka is an independent NGO, funded annually by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture.
Roots in early film and television education
Metka has its roots in early film and television education, and our core member organisations are Finnish regional film centres, librarians’ as well as teachers’ unions. We work closely with other similar organisations to improve the Finnish media and film education programs and policies nationally. Together with all our stakeholders we continue delivering strong practical media and film education to several target groups annually.
Throughout the decades Metka has always been a great contributor to the formal media and cultural educational programs by delivering two core activities 1) Oivallus (Insight) seminar which has been developed for the further training of teachers, librarians and media educators on topical themes on media and information literacy; as well as 2) Minun elokuvani (My Movie) film educational program, which mainly brings Finnish filmmaking culture closer to secondary school students. In addition, for the past decade Metka has delivered an international project called Northern Script for young Nordic and Baltic screenwriters wanting to improve their opportunities on getting their first short films on the silver screen.
Our strategic mission is to be a trusted partner of building the active media skills agency of our program participants, providing practical, grassroots level training for anyone navigating the fastly digitalised world and finding ways to improve their critical media and information literacy skills.
Metka’s strategic values
Active participation and community building
- everyone at every age has the right to participate in media and film education
- collaboration and partnerships with stakeholders with similar value systems
- national and international networks and partners
Equality and inclusivity supporting the wellbeing of humans
- respecting that everyone is a unique individual contributing to their community
- Besides being unique we all carry multitudes within ourselves, this in turn enables us to be truly creative
- accessible programming that respects the voices of the participants
- strong interaction and dialogically driven grassroots level collaboration
- providing safer spaces for everyone to be included
Expertise and impact
- We are a trusted partner with decades of experience under our belt
- we operate openly and transparently
- we want to make an impact of building an educated society with active media agency
- we are a national organisation
Creativity
Sustainable future
Educational programming
Having critical media literacy skills relies on the active role of the individual in building their own media agency, which includes critical thinking abilities and active participation on media interaction and production that support wellbeing. Annually Metka delivers several educational programs to dozens of different target groups; we always tailor our workshops, education programs and further training to the needs of the participants and carefully listen to our clients and partners in order to enhance their work on media and cultural education. We are stronger together!