WIFT (FI) training program

WIFT Finland’s training was offered through its mentorship scheme which was one of the formats Womarts training could be offered. Mentoring is first and foremost a career coaching scheme provided by professionals to each other as peer support. The goal of mentorship is to support and assist the artist in their careers. The mentorship scheme helped artists and creative professionals in early or mid-career to find new direction and encouraged them to stay in their selected profession. Mentorship program helped to refine working methods, changed career attitudes and pushed the participant forward to find new ways to manage one’s career and promote creativity with the help of a more experienced professional. The mentorship program specifically aimed to improve employability and entrepreneurship by enabling the artist to make concrete career choices.

Womarts mentorship program 2020

Spring 2020
Kari Kankaanpää (mentor) – Anne Karttunen (mentee)
Ami Lindholm (mentor) – Kaarina Uimonen (mentee)
Jani Pösö (mentor) – Anita Hyppönen (mentee)

Fall 2020
Sari Aaltonen (mentor) – Sara Forsius (mentee)
Kari Kankaanpää (mentor) – Milja Aho (mentee)
Nunnu Karppinen (mentor) – Katri Aksola (mentee)
Paula Korva (mentor) – Anna-Maija Ihander (mentee)
Ilja Rautsi (mentor) – Emma Kiuru (mentee)
Alina Tomnikov (mentor) – Eevi Rola (mentee)

Total participants: 18

You can find more information about the mentorship scheme on the project website:

mentorointi.wift.fi

Training contents offered to the participants in the mentorship scheme.

Training Menu 1

Mentorship starting breakfast seminar – trainer Jenni Koski
Date: 14 February 2020
Participants: 15
Onsite training 

Training contents:

In the start-up seminar for Womarts mentorship cycle no 1, Jenni Koski introduced the Womarts further training program as part of mentorship in 2020. In addition, Jenni Koski lectured on the importance of mentorship process diaries that reflect the learning experiences of the participants.

TRAINER: JENNI KOSKI
Master of Arts (University of Joensuu) and Master of Creative Media (RMIT University), is a freelance filmmaker, producer and project manager in the arts and cultural sectors. Currently, Jenni Koski works as a project manager at an European large-scale project Wom@rts in which she has been developing further training programs for female creative practitioners together with Limerick School of Art and Design. Jenni Koski was a co-developer and leader of the IN FOCUS Incubator managed by Women in Film & Television Finland. Jenni Koski is a qualified vocational teacher (e.g. Omnia, Karelia University of Applied Sciences, among others) whose interest is building and developing the professional expertise of freelance creative practitioners in their project-based careers. 

Training Menu 2

Mentorship practices lecture – Coach Virpi Haavisto
Date: 14 February 2020.
Participants: 15
Onsite training

Training contents:

Trainer Virpi Haavisto lectured on the importance of mentorship in creative industries. Virpi presented methods and tools for a successful mentor-mentee relationship. Virpi also presented the psychological factors promoting wellbeing in the creative career.

TRAINER: MENTORSHIP COACH VIRPI HAAVISTO

Virpi Haavisto is a specialist in helping high-performing creative professionals, executives, leaders, talents and teams to find their clarity and focus and to grow. Virpi is trusted by executives and experts in various areas of businesses from tech to design, from artists to athletes, including individuals, teams and organizations. Her special expertise areas as a coach include people skills and leadership, creative expert work, solution-focus mindset, leadership development at every level, coaching leadership style, emotions in work, and how to support high-performing teams and collaboration.

Training Menu 5

Keynote Alternative Financing of Independent Films – Lecturer Juliane Schulze
Date: 16 April 2020
Live stream and online on WIFT Finland’s Youtube channel for 2 weeks after the event

Views over 270 times. 

Training contents:

The keynote addressed alternative funding models for creative productions. The keynote answered questions such as which alternative financing sources are suitable for independent audiovisual productions and how can investors and financiers be convinced to come on board the production?

Trainer Juliane Schulze: see more info below

Training Menu 5

Accessing Alternative Finance – Trainer Juliane Schulze
Date: 16 April – 23 June 2020
Participants: 7 persons in 3 teams
Both offsite and onsite training, hybrid training 

Selected participants in the training program 

1st team: Anita Hyppönen and Jonna Enroth with their production company and co-production “Violin”.

2nd team: Danai Anagnostou, Elena Näsänen and Martta Tuomaala with their production company Kenno Filmi.

3rd team: Rosa Karo and Mete Sasioglu with their project “The Adventures of Master Elf”. Project was selected in collaboration with Finnish Film Affair.

Training contents:
The Workshop series Accessing Alternative Finance aimed at empowering female entrepreneurs in the Finnish film and television industry and at supporting female professionals in successfully financing their audiovisual projects and companies. The focus lay on enabling participants to identify suitable alternative financing sources and lay the foundation for improved strategic business and financing decisions. The ultimate goal of the workshop series was to support participants in developing the full potential of their projects and ventures which enables them to identify and access financing sources beyond public funding and to build sustainable audiovisual companies and lucrative professional careers. At the end of the training the participants pitched their companies and projects to an expert group.

Pitching jury experts group in June 2020:
Elisa Alvares
Nunnu Karppinen
Sissi Sílvan

TRAINER JULIANE SCHULZE

Juliane Schulze is Senior Partner at strategic financing consultancy peacefulfish and member of the board of Media Deals, a pan-European investor network being constituted of business angels and early-stage venture capital funds focusing on creative industries and digital media. In 2020, Juliane initiated the initiative create.sustain.invest., aiming at building an ecosystem for creative industry startups offering sustainability solutions and for equity investors. Before she co-founded VRNext which brought together the worlds of XR Content, Technology, Distribution and Finance.

As Executive Advisor with 30 years of experience in the creative industries, Juliane holds an extensive cross-industrial knowledge, specialising in financing and business consulting of technology driven entrepreneurs in the creative industries.

Training Menu 3

Self-determination, wellbeing and creativity of artists – Lecturer Marjukka Laurola

Date: 14 May 2020

Streamed live, still viewable. Views over 250 times.

Training contents:

In the times of the pandemic, Womarts offered a public lecture, providing tools and methods for managing optimum working conditions in the creative industries during challenging times. The lecture emphasised improving mental presence, self-determination and self-leadership.

TRAINER MARJUKKA LAUROLA

Marjukka Laurola is an occupational health psychologist and career coach who has a solid background in creative practice. Marjukka works with artists and organisations operating in the cultural and creative sectors, helping them to achieve occupational wellbeing at work and to manage creative careers in challenging times. Marjukka is interested in developing dialogue between operators and helping participants to develop their mental capacities.

Training Menu 1

Mentorship starting breakfast seminar – trainer Jenni Koski

Date: 22 August 2020

Participants: 17

Onsite, hybrid training

Training contents: Same contents as above

Training Menu 2

Mentorship practices lecture – Coach Virpi Haavisto

Date: 22 August 2020

Participants: 17

Onsite, hybrid training

Training contents: Same as above

Training Menu 1 & 2

Creation of artist SWOT-analysis and self-determination in the creative career – Trainer Jenni Koski

Date: 23 October 2020

Participants: 8

Onsite, hybrid training

Training contents:

The training included analysing the relationship between artist’s personality, strengths and weaknesses and helped participants build a tool box for managing one’s own creative career.

Training Menu 1 & 4

Branding and Marketing for Creative Practitioners on the new WOMarts.net platform – trainer Jenni Koski

Date: 24 October 2020

Participants: 11

Training contents:

The training focused on using the new WOMarts.net artist portal for self-marketing and promotion. The participants created an international profile on the WOMarts.net platform which they are able to use for social media marketing.

Training Menu 1 & 4

Artist WIFT-Wikipedia-edit-a-thon – trainer Johanna Janhonen

Date: 24 October 2020

Participants: 11

Training contents:

During the training Wikimedia Finland trainer Johanna Janhonen lectured on how to create content on Wikipedia and how to update the entries. The participants learned concrete methods and tools to create a Wikipedia profile for themselves. After the training the participants had a Finnish Wikipedia profile site.

COACH JOHANNA JANHONEN

MSc Johanna Janhonen is social media consultant and a trainer, a blogger, a columnist, an event producer and the most active paid Wikipedian in Finland. Mrs Janhonen is a using social media daily for business, pleasure and research.

Johanna Janhonen offers trainings and consultation for companies, cities and other organizations (as well as personal brands) trainings, workshops and content creation for social media services.

Training Menu 3

Resilience in creative work, methods and tools for leading your own career – Trainer Marjukka Laurola, facilitator Jenni Koski

Date: 20 November 2020

Participants: 26

Facilitated Howspace training platform online (duration 1-2 months)

Training contents:

The training focused on the creation of a long-term facilitated training platform where an artist’s own toolbox was built. The tools offered had to do with managing one’s creative career in times of change and challenge. The training focuseds on concrete tools with which the artists were able to tune their creativity and intuition alongside their analytical mind, in order to reduce mental obstacles. The training focused on opening new capacities and mental resources to take new steps in the creative career. The training used mindfulness, intuition and building of positive mental images for envisioning a new future for professional development.

Training Menu 1 & 4

Branding and Marketing for Creative Practitioners on the new WOMarts.net platform – trainers Carolina Salas and Jenni Koski

Date: 5 December 2020

Participants: 12
Training contents: Same as in Finland

TRAINER CAROLINA SALAS

Carolina Salas (Salas Filmworks) is a Unit Production Manager who works internationally, primarily in Iceland and Spain. Her prior work as producer or co-producer includes the feature Everything in the End by Mylissa Fitzsimmons, the feature documentary Home Again by Dögg Mósesdóttir, the short films LjósÖld, Islandia, Storm Room, The Silence of the Fish and a variety of commercial and service jobs. She has also project manager roles for festivals such as RIFF, Stockfish, and Northern Wave.

Training Menu 1 & 4

Artist WIFT-Wikipedia-edit-a-thon – trainer Salvör Kristjana Gissurardóttir

Date: 5 December 2020

Participants: 12
Training contents: Similar to training in Finland. Online material at: https://notendur.hi.is/~salvor/wikipedia/

TRAINER SALVÖR KRISTJANA GISSURARDÓTTIR

Kristjana is an Assistant Professor at the University of Iceland, specialising in information technology in education, open source and open educational resources. Kristjana has been an active contributor on Wikipedia Iceland, operating since the early 2000.

Training Menu 6

Final event for Wom@rts mentorship and training program – Trainer Jenni Koski

Date: 31 March 2021

Participants: 15

Offsite, online training 

Training contents:

Final event for mentorship and Womarts training program, the event enabled the participants to have a roundtable discussion on the learning experiences they have had during the program. After the event all participants received final graduation diplomas.

Training delivery in total:

1 mentorship program with 2 cycles in 2020-2021

Separate training events and sessions: 14

Participants: 184 people

Training content streams, views total: approximately 520