The registation for autumn courses starts on Monday June 1 at 10 am on our webpage.

If you have trouble with online registration, please contact the office: toimisto@helao.fi. You can also register personally at Töölöntullinkatu 8, 3rd floor June 1-4 at 10 am – 2 pm. Please come to the office only if you’re feeling well.

Please note that we don’t accept cash payments starting June 1st. Courses can be paid with payment cards and Culture and Sports Vouchers. Read more here.

The institute will be moving during the summer, so the autumn courses will start in our new premises in Runeberginkatu 22-24, given that the contact teaching is possible then. Read more about the new premises here.

The Finnish courses can also be found online. Browse courses here.

The Institute of Adult Education in Helsinki and its Basic Education will move to a new location in Autumn 2020 due to Helsinki City plans in the Meilahti area. The new premises are located on Runeberginkatu 22–24 in Etu-Töölö.

The building has been renovated for the institute’s purposes. It was originally built as a lyceum for girls in 1923, and later in the 1960’s owned by Helsinki School of Business.

In the new premises the Instutute of Adult Education in Helsinki will emerge into a modern center of learning and wellbeing of the 2020’s. The operations will remain the same in the new location as well, and we invite our students to continue with us at the new and improved premises.

Further information will be available as the renovation project proceeds.

Our offices at Mannerheimintie 114 are closed due to the coronavirus epidemic until further notice. Our customer services are available via email at toimisto@helao.fi.

The institute will remain closed under the orders of Regional State Administrative Agencies. However most courses continue online. We will keep you up to date with latest news and changes on our website and through our social media sites.

You can follow us in Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Youtube

Please explore forthcoming spring and summer online courses. For example, Finnish courses run online until summer.

Course programme for autumn 2020 will be published in May and the registration for autumn will open on 1st of June at 10.00am.

Notification, March 18 at 9 pm

Updated April 7 at 11.29

Regional State Administrative Agencies order all contact teaching to be suspended until further notice. For this reason there will be no lessons during this time at the Adult Education Centre in Helsinki.

Instead of contact teaching, we are trying to organise teaching and guidance in alternative ways, if possible, including distance learning and various digital learning environments. The students will be notified of any alternative measures.

The office remains closed. You can still reach the office by email: toimisto@helao.fi.

Follow our website and social media channels for news. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

FM Nuppu Tuononen Helsingin aikuisopistosta on valittu vuoden 2019 S2-opettajaksi 7.10. S2-kehittämispäivillä.

Kunniakirjan jakoivat pääjohtaja Olli-Pekka Heinonen Opetushallituksesta ja puheenjohtaja Jenni Alisaari Suomi toisena kielenä -opettajista.

Nupun ura suomi toisena kielenä -opettajana on pitkä, monivivahteinen ja menestyksekäs.

Nuppu Tuononen kommentoi valintaansa Facebookissa: “Hiukan hämmentynyt, mutta hyvin kiitollinen mieli tästä illasta! Minulla on ollut etuoikeus alusta alkaen oppia ja kasvaa upeiden opettajien, kollegojen ja ystävien kanssa. Heiltä olen oppinut kaiken, mitä minusta on tänään sanottu. Myös opiskelijoista olen saanut parhaimmat – silloin on helppo opettaakin hyvin. Lämpimät kiitokset!”

Buy a gift card for someone special! We offer gift cards worth 20, 50 or 100 euros. A gift card can be used for purchasing a course at the Institute. If you wish to buy a gift card for another sum, please contact the office.

The one to receive the gift card must register for a course online, by email or at the office. The course must not be paid in connection with the registration. Instead, the one with the gift card has to notify the office about having received a gift card. If the course is more expensive than the gift card, no money will be returned. The office will refund the customer.

The gift card is valid for one year.

Read more and make a purchase.

Office:
Tel 09 41 500 300
toimisto@helao.fi
Mannerheimintie 114
www.helao.fi

A chilly, but sunny March afternoon gets started at the Annankatu big sports premise prompted by laid-back music. The body is gently being woken from winter mould; the shoulders, hips and ribcage are rotated and dance steps are being traced. Soon a full house jams to West African party music and the corners of mouths start to climb towards the ears.

The event is an Afrobeats Weekend with Annina Tuhkunen. Afrobeats is still a relative newcomer in the Institute’s course program, but the two weeked courses to date have attracted plenty of participants interested in urban afro rhythms. During a two-day course we have time to practise one, longer choreography, train the movement language characteristic to West African dances, jam freely, stretch and even hear about the history Afrobeats. We also learn that the core of these party dances is attitude; everyone is the king or girl boss of the dance floor, but one absolutely must not take oneself too seriously. Some of the moves are pure silliness, so taking oneself too seriously does not even really come to mind. However, the choreography does require concentration in order for the hip-swings, hops and spins to be timed approximately correctly and for them to move in the right directions, but the most important thing seems to be good feeling and the essence of the music. Annina has combined elements from both traditional West African street dances and from modern street dances into the choreography.

The teacher tells us that ’Afrobeats’ is an umbrella term for a multitude of various styles from both French and English speaking West Africa. This weekend we danced Coupé Décalé, a club dance, which developed in the clubs of Paris form Ivory Coast rhythms, and whose movements have plenty of influences from traditional West African dances: the Congo ndombolo, the Angolan kuduro and hiphop. Coupé Décalé was birthed by Ivory Coast immigrants who came to France in the 2000s. Successful immigrants showcased their achievements through dance, and that included playful strutting, competitiveness and dance battles, known also from hiphop, in which the dancers challenge one another. From France these rhythms soon returned back to Africa and during the 2002 Ivory Coast civil war Coupé Décalé became hugely popular among young people and became a virtual counter force to the insanity of war. Its pioneers are Douk Saga and Molare, who also have a role in the fact that the Coupé Décalé from the early 2000s became known also outside the African Diaspora. Nowadays even in Helsinki there are opportunities to dance at regularily organized Afrobeats clubs. Thus far the English-language Afrobeats, like azonto, seems to be more known in Finland than music in the French language, but thanks to these kinds of courses, various festivals and easy-to-find videos from YouTube, the awareness is on the rise also here in the North.

After the course I stay behind to have a chat with the teacher. Annina’s own background is in West African dances she has danced from the mid 90s. She told me she found Coupé Décalé about 10 years ago. During those 10 years she has also witnessed the rise in popularity of the Afrobeats phenomenon, especially among young people, on her regular trips to Africa. She reminds me that Afrobeats is not be confused with the classical, funk-like Afrobeat (without the letter s) style of music, which the Nigerian Fela Kuti developed already in the early 60s. The modern Afrobeats dances are in constant flux; movements are borrowed from other disciplines and traditional dances, they are fused, and certain styles become a trend for a while only to fade away soon after. In the modern world the use of smart devices has made fast as lightning communication possible. Anyone can film cool dance moves with their own phone and videos donwloaded on the internet can achieve large audiences in a heartbeat. One interested in the subject may want to write ”coupe decale” into the YouTube search field to get an idea of what this kind of dancing looks like (there are also a few examples at the end of this article). And if one is wondering whether Afrobeats is a fit to oneself, one may gain encouragement from this video, where they dance to Nigerian Yemi Alada’s song Johnny.

After the course one feels sweaty, but light and satisfied. Despite the frost and persistent ice outside the Helsinki summer seems to be one step closer.

***

Some videos to set the mood:

Molare – Fouttement (Ivory Coast)
Serge Beynaud – Kababléké (Ivory Coast)
Debordo Leekunfa – Robot Macador (Ivory Coast)
Toofan – ”GWETA” (Togo)
FUSE ODG ft TIFFANY – Azonto (UK / Ghana)
Yemi Alade – Bum Bum (Nigeria)

***

Text: Venla, the Institute of Adult Education in Helsinki

My drawing history is the usual: as a child drawing was my favourite hobby and I could spend countless hours immersed in the world of drawing, not hearing or seeing anything around me. My promising hobby stopped during school years, since the school art classes rarely offered scintillating inspiration. I went in search for inspiration on the course ”In the Garden – an Intensive Course in Drawing”, because independent drawing just didnt’t take wind. You can certainly start with white copy paper and a HB stub you dug out of your pencil case, but one can open up a whole new world by simply getting to know different sorts of paper and hardness of pencils. When looking for inspiration, the subject matter is of primary importance. If it doesn’t inspire you, waiting for an excellent result is futile. As our course teacher Eeva-Maija Priha noted: when you force your doing it shows and it doesn’t look good.

The weekend started with an overview into the history of drawing plants. Simultaneously we got to see the teacher’s own works and diary-like sketchbooks. We briefly familiarized ourselves with drawing equipment by experiementing and asking questions. On Satuday morning our small, but wildly enthusiastic group met in front of the Winter Garden. The place was ideal and charmed us by its scents alone. We started by doing quick sketches of trees outdoors, after our teacher first demonstrated the method. The most difficult thing about drawing plants and scenery is making the abundace plain. How to bring out the essence of a tree without being too detailed? For this problem quick sketching seemed like an excellent learning method. Eeva-Maija adviced us to pick a simple model at first, even a single leaf, so indoors I picked a branch, which appealed to me with its curving forms. For the rest of the day I sketched details of a luscious clivias. At the end of the day it was interesting to see others’ works and hear what kind of feelings arose in the students. The teacher said that we each had out own, unique line and that it really showed in the works.

If Saturday seemed like a fumbling prelude, on Sunday we really got going. This time we went to the Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden and started the day by doing quick sketches of plants. It was surprisingly fun and efficient: the eye quickly learned to pick out the essentials. After this the subject was free. I chose a pond of water lilies as a challenge, to learn how to simplify. The abundance of the subject matter tired me out pretty quickly, so for the rest of the day I focused on quick sketches. The best works turned out to be those I thought I would only sketch in passing.

The sun caressed us for the whole weekend and brought its own additions into our drawing with the ever changing lights and shadows. We had lunch outdoors in the sunshine while discussing art. Eeva-Maija was a lovely and supporting teacher, and she circled around encouraging everyone. The course was aptly informal, we each got to pick our subjects and places accoring to our preferences. If one wished, it was possible to go to a place hidden from view, if someone felt disturbed by surrounding people and curious looks. Creative doing is most fun when it sucks you in completely. The surrounding world disappears and other things lose their meaning when what you are doing is interesting enough. Time passes by more quickly than usual, but without the sense of hurry. Even eating can easily be forgotten.

”In the Garden – an Intensive Course in Drawing” turned out to be the crown jewel of my spring courses. I got a concentrated dose of inspiration with it. I found some unexpected aspects of myself as a drawer and my inner critic was silenced: you don’t have aspire for a great outcome all the time. When one draws freely, without thinking too much, the outcome may turn out to be a positive suprise. One’s thoughts about drawing became surprisingly clear during such a short course. I found a new sense of perception and, most importantly, a new point of view: how to look at things and what to choose for portrayal. One doesn’t need to stick to only one style and one can draw the same subject in various ways. In addition to the joy of learning new things the course put me in a good mood. An aesthete like me could scarcely think of anything better than informal and relaxed drawing in a beautiful and fragrant environment. Inspired by the course I may also in the future be found in the midst of the verdancy of gardens, immersed in my sketchbook and dreams.