About me / Portrait
I am Huugo,and I am yet to be complete.
I was born in 2007 in Southwest Finland and somehow ended up living in Helsinki. There is a restless curiosity burning inside me, along with a need to understand the world.
I move at the intersection of youth participation, civil society, politics and communications.
01
Born
2007
At home
in Helsinki & Southwest Finland
I work
with Civil Society, Politics & Communications
What I do
I move between worlds.
My seemingly scattered interests are, in the end, simply different expressions of the same pursuit: I want to turn my visions into something tangible.
01
Civil society
Through organisations, I build opportunities for other young people to have a genuine say. Instead of allowing youth participation to remain merely symbolic, I help institutions understand the value of young people as experts in their own right. Scouting is what first taught me to care about society around me.
02
Politics
I am a member of the National Coalition Party and a classical liberal. I am drawn to thinking that combines individual freedom, economic responsibility, European cooperation and ambitious environmental & climate policy.
03
Communications
Communication builds understanding. My central mission as a communicator is to help others understand, participate & see things differently.
I don’t want to be just a Resumé
A person cannot be reduced to job titles.
The easiest way to write about me — as with probably any organisation-obsessed young person — would be to list organisations, positions & responsibilities. The harder, and far more interesting, question is why I have ended up around the tables where I now sit.
I genuinely care about who holds the power to define our shared future. I care about whether politics is capable of looking beyond the next poll or election. Most of all, though, I care about every young person being able to see themselves as an actor in society rather than merely someone belonging to a target group.
I don’t long for a finished world. I long for a world in which young people have the chance to decide their own future.
Twelve years in scouting
Scouting has taught me leadership, even in the middle of storms.
For twelve years of my life, I have had the privilege of growing up as a scout. I have wandered through national parks, sailed across the Archipelago Sea and leaned against friends by campfires, hypnotised by the glow of the embers. I have learned to trust other people when things go wrong and when risks no one could quite predict become reality.
For twelve years of my life, I have had the privilege of growing up as a scout. I have wandered through national parks, sailed across the Archipelago Sea and leaned against friends by campfires, hypnotised by the glow of the embers. I have learned to trust other people when things go wrong and when risks no one could quite predict become reality.
My values guide what I do
I want my values to remain visible even when decisions become difficult.
01
Freedom
People should have the right to build a life that looks like their own, without unnecessary paternalism. Freedom also naturally comes with responsibility: for our own choices, for other people and for the future we share.
02
Education & civility
To me, being truly educated means, above all, curiosity of the heart, a willingness to change one’s mind & the ability to treat those who disagree with respect. The future of our republic grows from that kind of civilisation.
03
Power over the future
Merely pretending to listen to young people is not enough! Far too often, we are still invited into discussions only for adults to rush ahead and make the final decisions on their own. We young people have an undeniable right to define the kind of society in which we will one day live as adults.
04
Nature
Nature is not something decorative. It is the prerequisite for all life we have on this planet. There is little point dreaming of a better world without a thriving natural environment. We have no backup copy of our green forests, so we had better take care of them.
When no one needs a decision from me
That’s when I read, study languages and disappear into projects.
The moments when my curiosity is allowed to spin freely without a destination are strangely wonderful. I get stuck pondering the structures of foreign languages, disappear into a new memoir or write code that is, at my current level, fairly terrible. I stop at the piano to revisit all sorts of songs that have come to mean something to me.
There is still a person from Southwest Finland inside me, longing for forests, the sea and long train journeys. At the same time, I feel restless about moving towards something new, while remaining deeply attached to where I come from.
In a perfect world, I would wake up with Helsingin Sanomat and a dark roast, spend the afternoon on a train with a cup of hot chocolate in my hands & make tea in the evening. In this reality, the cup often goes cold before I remember to take a sip, because some passing thought has once again sent me down the rabbit hole of an entirely unfamiliar subject.
This page isn’t finished either
Good.
I am still moving too. My thoughts evolve, my roles change and the world keeps forcing me to reconsider my edges and assumptions. Still, I hope that after reading this page, you feel you know at least part of the answer to the question of why I do what I do.