Pride Parade fills sunny streets with colour and joy
The City of Espoo’s participation in the parade is a visible act demonstrating that everyone in Espoo can feel accepted and appreciated as themselves.
This is Espoo’s fourth year as an official partner of Helsinki Pride. The colourful Pride Parade enjoyed the sunny weather on Saturday as it started from the Senate Square at noon, heading towards Kaivopuisto where the Park Festival will be celebrated until 21:00.
Thousands of people have joined the parade. The organisers estimated in advance that about 100,000 participants would attend the event.
The City of Espoo’s staff, including Mayor Kai Mykkänen, are taking part in the parade wearing white Pride-themed T-shirts. They are spreading an important message that resonates with the parade participants:
“It is important that Espoo actively supports equality and diversity.”
“By participating in the parade, we are sending the message to both residents and our staff that equality is important to us and that discrimination or harassment of any kind is not tolerated.”
“We want to show our support for sexual and gender minorities and also make other minorities more visible.”
The City of Espoo will continue its important work to promote diversity, equality and non-discrimination as one of the Helsinki Pride Community’s Working with Pride partners until the end of 2026.
We celebrate the promotion of human rights and equality through events in our libraries, cultural venues and museums. Welcome to our events!
Explore our event calendar here: Pride events in Espoo
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The Helsinki Pride Community(external link, opens in a new window) is a non-governmental human rights organisation that does a variety of social, youth and collaborative work. It provides training and consulting services and advocates for the rights and wellbeing of sexual and gender minorities. The Helsinki Pride Community’s values are community, diversity and courage. This year’s theme is ‘Growing with Pride’.