The City of Kouvola has been selected as the inaugural recipient of MuniFin’s newly established Happiness Grant. The EUR 100,000 grant will enable the city to build a mobile and fully accessible Happiness Stage — a platform that brings cultural and community events within reach for everyone. The project stands out for its commitment to diverse cultural expression, its ability to serve audiences with varying needs, and its strong emphasis on strengthening local community bonds.
Kouvola is known as an active and event driven city, where things are done with heart. The Happiness Stage builds on these strengths while also helping to address the challenges brought by Kouvola’s structure as a wide municipality formed through multiple mergers.
A large and diverse city in need of shared spaces
Kouvola offers excellent grounds for a project aimed at increasing participation and community wellbeing. Following the municipal mergers of 2009, it became the largest municipality in Southern Finland by land area — and the one with the greatest number of villages nationwide. This creates both a need to strengthen city-wide cohesion and an opportunity to support the vitality and identity of local population centres.
“Events on the Happiness Stage will be organised across the entire city. In planning, we pay special attention to areas with limited event facilities. The stage will be used for both city led and resident driven events,” says Sanna-Riitta Junnonen, Kouvola’s Head of Wellbeing.
Programming will particularly target groups for whom participating is often challenging: older residents, people with special needs, individuals experiencing loneliness, and those at risk of exclusion. The city has also committed to bringing the Happiness Stage annually to the courtyards of service homes and care facilities.
Expanding the city’s event offering — from intimate gatherings to major festivals
With the new mobile performance space, Kouvola aims to broaden its event offering even further.
“The stage can accommodate everything from small, targeted activities to large community celebrations. Plans include a dating show Napakymppi, Kouvola Stories, a TimeTravel by the River Kymijoki, a Generations Workshop, harvest festivals, employment fairs and traditional open-air dances. It works for music, theatre, sports, village celebrations, bingo, poetry readings, popup events and outdoor theatre,” Junnonen explains.
Residents and community organisations have been involved from the very beginning, including house committees of community spaces and young people active in the city’s youth services.
“Our message is: Participate and feel happier. The Happiness Stage builds a sense of belonging and pride in one’s community. It helps make Kouvola a place where everyone feels they have a role,” Junnonen says.
Impact that extends beyond Kouvola
The Happiness Grant attracted 70 applications from municipalities, public housing organisations, wellbeing services counties, and joint municipal authorities across Finland.
“We received many high-quality applications, and comparing entirely different types of projects was challenging. What convinced us about Kouvola’s project was its concreteness and its ability to address the needs of many different groups,” says Mari Tyster, Director at MuniFin.
A mobile stage is not a unique concept in Finland, but Kouvola’s approach is exceptional in how broadly it aims to strengthen inclusion and community spirit. The project is built on resident input and takes into account Kouvola’s structural changes over the past decades.
“What matters to us in Happiness Grant projects is long-term impact and replicability. The Happiness Stage supports wellbeing in a sustainable way by creating a model that others can adopt,” Tyster notes.
The winner was selected by the Happiness Jury, consisting of MuniFin’s Mari Tyster and Procurement Manager Reetta Holopainen, along with external experts: Creative Director Jani Halme, innovation policy specialist Jayla Tammiharju, and author and social media professional Julia Thurén. The jury was advised by happiness researcher Jennifer De Paola, who co-developed the evaluation criteria with MuniFin.
The Happiness Grant – local ideas for shared wellbeing
Established by MuniFin, the Happiness Grant awards EUR 100,000 annually to a project that best enhances community-level happiness in Finland. The fund aims to surface local initiatives that strengthen communal wellbeing and to spark broader discussion on what drives happiness in Finnish society — and how all levels of society can cultivate it. Read more about the Happiness Grant and its background in our previous news article.
The next application round opens in August and closes at the end of October 2026.