Sosiaalikeskus Satama was a social center

Social center

Social centers are community spaces. They are buildings which are used for a range of disparate activities, which can be linked only by virtue of being not-for-profit. They might be organizing centers for local activities or they might provide support networks for minority groups such as prisoners...

 in Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, opened in April 2009. It was located 500 metres (1,640.4 ft) north of the Kalasatama metro station

Kalasatama metro station

Kalasatama or Fiskhamnen is a station on the Helsinki Metro, in the capital city of Finland. The station was opened on 1 January 2007, and it serves the eastern part of the central Helsinki district of Sörnäinen...

 along the Kyläsaarenkatu street, in an old customs

Customs

Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting and safeguarding customs duties and for controlling the flow of goods including animals, transports, personal effects and hazardous items in and out of a country...

 building in the central Helsinki district of Sörnäinen

Sörnäinen

Sörnäinen is a neighbourhood in the city of Helsinki, Finland.Sörnäinen is located a little more than one kilometre north from the coastal centre of Helsinki, near the district of Hakaniemi. The east side of Sörnäinen borders the sea....

, left empty when the harbor operations moved to the Vuosaari Harbor (hence the name satama, harbor). The building has 360 square metres (430.6 sq yd) in three stories.

The building was given to squatters by the Helsinki Board of Youth Issues in October 2008 after an exhausting series of squatting

Squatting

Squatting consists of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use....

s and evictions around the city.

External links

• http://www.satama.org