The cornerstone of unity

30 SPONSOR COMMUNE MOVEMENT
The sponsor commune movement between Finland and Sweden, which started during World War II, was a form 
of humanitarian aid based on voluntary civil activity. Sweden was eager to support Finland, and citizens wanted 
to participate. This desire was channelled through the sponsor commune movement. 
It was not possible during the war to send every Finnish child abroad to be taken care of, but approximately 
70,000 children moved to temporary homes in Sweden and Denmark. War orphans received help from individual 
people or communities that committed themselves to sponsoring a certain orphan for two years. Until 1958, 
Finnish war orphans received a total of 2.2 billion Finnish markka from these sponsors in Finland or abroad, for 
example from Sweden and the United States. Many Swedish people helped Finland in every way that they could. 
The collections organised by the sponsor commune movement enabled each citizen to give a little bit of money 
to this good cause without obligating them to other commitments. 
Sponsor commune relationships were established according to a standard practice: one coastline commune 
was sponsored by another coastline commune, one industrial city by another, one rural commune by another. 
There were a total of 653 sponsor relationships between towns, communes, cities and neighbourhoods. In 
Sweden the movement was organised through associations, while its Finnish counterpart was the local branch 
of the Mannerheimin Lastensuojeluliitto (Mannerheim League for Child Welfare). Relationships were thus based 
on civil activity rather than official channels. This arrangement also guaranteed that aid would not be used for 
military purposes. 
Sponsor commune relationships were maintained by correspondence and visits that grew over the years into 
genuine friendships. Decisions on how to use the aid were taken together. Swedes were always kept informed 
about when the aid was received and how it was used. The goal of the aid was make long-term improvements in 

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living conditions by e.g. hiring a nurse or building a health centre for well-baby clinics and the community doctor. 
The movement’s slogan was “Help for Self-help”. 
The importance of sponsor commune aid increased greatly when, once the war was over, the financial aid 
allowed the importation of luxury goods, which were sold for high prices outside the rationing system. At first it 
was used to buy sugar. The so-called sugar crowns (named after the Swedish monetary unit) helped finance the 
construction of 500 commune health centres and the construction of 27 health centres for the Mannerheim 
League for Child Welfare. Sugar crowns also provided the initial capital for children’s hospitals in Helsinki and 
Kuopio, as well as for many childcare centres. All in all, Finnish communes received about 1.4 billion Finnish 
markka as sponsor commune aid. 
In 1946 the Norden associations in Norway, Sweden and Denmark started a friendship commune programme 
which was based on cultural exchanges between similar communes. The Finnish Pohjola-Norden association 
joined the programme the following year, and Finnish communes established twin commune relationships with 
their Swedish sponsor communes and partners in other Nordic countries. 
Financial aid from Sweden to Finland came to an end in the 1950s and changed into cultural cooperation. 
Responsibility for this no longer lay in the hands of the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare. During the 
following decades the Norden associations cooperated actively, organising e.g. common visits, orchestra 
exchanges and sports competitions. As its activities were so similar, the sponsor commune movement was 
dismantled at the beginning of the 1980s and its operations were integrated into the Pohjola-Norden twin 
commune programme. 
The sponsor commune and twin commune activities laid the foundation for Finnish communes’ international 
activities and alleviated Finland’s international isolation during the post-war period. Similar official twin commune 
relationships were also in later years established with other countries. 
Aura Korppi-Tommola 
– Executive director,
Federation of Finnish learned societies