The town of Jakobstad has developed a bilingualism programme, with the intention of promoting equality between Finnish and Swedish within the town’s administration and services, as well as strengthening an atmosphere where people from both language groups feel equal and comfortable in the town.

In the bilingualism programme, which applies for 2025-2030, special attention is paid to Finnish, as the proportion of Finnish speakers in the population has decreased. Extensive resident surveys have shown that Finnish-speaking residents of Jakobstad are more dissatisfied with the range of services in their mother tongue and feel less comfortable in the town than Swedish-speaking residents.

How important do you think it is that the town, through efforts such as this bilingualism programme, tries to curb/prevent this development?

The survey is open until 6 April 2025.

Thank you in advance for your responses!

Did you know that you can see the result of last and previous “Question of the week” on the town’s homepage.