In September 2026, Ruskeat Tytöt ry announced that it was closing down. The association challenged and renewed the cultural and media field, and created a community where people from minority backgrounds could develop their skills and build their professional identities without outside prejudice or pigeonholing.
The association grew out of the blog of author and journalist Koko Hubara. It was founded in 2017 to broaden representation in Finnish literature and media production. Its work was funded mainly through grants, yet many were unwilling to pay proper compensation for its expertise. For years, the association was asked for consulting, training and use of its networks, for example.
From the beginning, the association built its work on a professional footing, which meant that its contributors were paid appropriately. This gave many new writers and journalists paid work and a foothold in a field where it is often hard for creators from minority backgrounds to get started. The association wanted to hold on to this principle, but continuous unpaid work was not sustainable.
One of the association’s recognitions was the prize in the Builders of the Century (Vuosisadan Rakentajat) competition, organised to celebrate the centenary of Finland’s independence. The prize was awarded to the writing school founded by the association. Kaskas designed and carried out the communications for the competition.
Noora Al-Ani has served as chair of Ruskeat Tytöt ry for four years and was a board member before that. She is pleased that mainstream media now has more brown creators. However, brown people are still rarely seen in visible positions or positions of power. According to Al-Ani, change takes time, because brown people need a genuine chance to advance in hierarchical workplaces and rise to roles where their voices are heard and seen more widely in society.
How would you describe the last years of Ruskeat Tytöt ry?
Challenging years, challenging times. We have no longer managed to get funding for the media or the writing school. From the outside, we have increasingly come to be seen as an anti-racist organisation that produces services related to equality. Yet no one wants to pay for those.
For a couple of years now, we have been doing the work with the board alone, pro bono. Even so, we have achieved a lot, for example an exhibition together with Stoa and an entire publication.
What kind of opportunities do you see for “by us, for us” media in Finland at the moment?
Quite small. In practice it means a lot of unpaid work. It bothers me a little that people always call it volunteer work. That is what it is, but in practice it is unpaid work. No one makes a living on volunteering.
I understand that society does not have to pay for everything people want to do out of passion. But I wish more attention were paid to the position of minorities. We are hardly represented anywhere.
The media field has changed in ten years, though. With social media, the younger generation now makes the kind of content that RT could not make ten years ago, because the platforms have changed so much.
If money were no obstacle, what kind of “by us, for us” media would this time need?
Something bigger than Ruskeat Tytöt has ever been. A media outlet that is taken seriously but still does things in its own way. Uusi Juttu comes to mind as an example. It publishes long journalistic stories on important topics, both current ones and ones that never really go out of date. My personal dream is that RT could have worked like that someday.
What impact has Ruskeat Tytöt had, and what kind of legacy does it leave behind?
We have words, for example. How did we talk about ourselves before we started talking about brown girls? We always had to say “non-white”, which puts the white person at the centre and defines everyone from that point of view. That is othering. In ten years we have changed the Finnish language, and that will live on.
We have also offered paid work to many new creators, who will hopefully get to continue their work. When you think about how many publishing contracts have come about precisely because of RT’s work, it is quite amazing. People have found their own community and friends. We have been able to be in spaces where we are not the only ones in the room. It is hard to explain how that feels when you repeatedly have to experience the opposite. If a white person is the only one in a room full of brown people, they know the situation is temporary and they will soon return to the white centre.
Ruskeat Tytöt has been a life-changing force for so many. A couple of weeks ago, someone walked past me on the street wearing an RT hoodie, and it felt really lovely. All of us still have a beanie, a hoodie or some old socks in a drawer. I believe Ruskeat Tytöt lives on in all of us.
Now we want to make sure that the publications of Ruskeat Tytöt media are properly archived. What we have achieved in ten years has left a significant cultural-historical mark.
*”By us, for us” media refers to media produced by minorities themselves, in which they tell about their own experiences and address topics that matter to them from their own perspectives.