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Jun
17
Ok, we’re slowing down for the summer. We’ve had the best spring together with you folks, but now is time for some mountains, some festivals, some travelling – and some workshops at Riddu Riddu in Olmmáivággi (Norway) and Contacting the world in Manchester (England). Let us know if you’re around, otherwise we’ll be back at the blog when the nights start getting dark again.
Have a great summer everyone!
Jun
15
Tromsö summer!
But we are hangin out inside with our portable offices.
Doing lots of counting and counting and counting (Check out Halvards spike mat!)
Jun
14
Tromsö is sweet like a dream!
Me and Halvard have just met up in Tromsö after some flying back and forth over Barents, and we will spend tomorrow with lots of numbers and words and typing on the computers. But before that, just see this photo of sunny Tromsö tonight! Summer nights – THIS is the good life in the north!
/Ylva
May
31
Ellen Blind having a lecture on cultural rights for sami people.
…and just see how fast spring came! We have just held our last workshop before the summer holidays and it feels GREAT! We have managed to find methods to use and we have learnt to use them. This weekend we had the final workshop with a great team of sami youth from Snåsa (Norway), Jokkmokk (Sweden) and Enare (Finland) on the theme rights of indigenous peoples and rights of sami people. Was well interesting! We also arranged a gig during the night, with Mertzi & Terno Drom playing live and then dj-ing from Gaiakollektivet, woooot! Will post photos from the workshop later this week, stay tuuuned!
May
18
Listen to SR Sámi Radios programme about the Sáminuorra meeting here, with an interview with Ylva and some examples on how it can sound like during our workshops… (RRR in the end of the programme)
May
17
Frida Allberg and Robert Lundgren.
Our Robban who is the man behind The Reggae Rock and Rights Shows has just got a scholarship from the municipality of Umeå for his work with among many other things Täfteåfestivalen, BRYC and The Reggae Rock and Rights Tour. VÄL UNT ROBBAN! We’re dead proud of ya!
Don’t miss to meet up with him, or at least enjoy the party he is arranging: the free outdoor-festival Täfteåfestivalen. 4-5 of June. Be there!
May
09
Photo: Marica Blind
We’re having a crazy experience of the Sáminuorra spirit and the night (or weekend) is still not over..! Here’s a sneakpeak of what we’ve been up to tonight. More to come!
May
07
Sáminuorras annual meeting has started, and I (Ylva) am sitting in the back enjoying the beauty of this view:
The board of Sáminuorra telling about their trip to COP15
Lars Miguel, Saila-Marie, Anne Máret, Cecilia, Krasta, Helena and Mattias.
Halvard will get here tonight and then we’ll prepare the last things for the workshops tomorrow. We will do two sets tomorrow + that we are arranging a gig tomorrow night with the great band Mertsi & Terno Drom.
The schedule for the weekend.
We just had the first break, which the girls in the back spent like this:
This is how much we like Sáminuorra!
...and this is what we do when we get bored...
But right now we’re all but bored, because we’re hanging out with this fine crew:
Some of the folks, all dressed up and pretty!
More than 100 participants - maybe Sáminuorras biggest annual meeting ever?
Ready for business.
More updates to come!
May
05
Tomorrow we’re heading towards Ammarnäs, where we will spend the weekend at the annual meeting of the national sami youth organisation in Sweden: Sáminuorra. We will hold two one-hour workshops on Saturday, with the aim to bring down decolonization to a local lever. How do I decolonize my own life? We don’t know the answer to that, but we will help the group through processes for them to find out the right answer for each one of them. We are well excited to see the outcome of these workshops!
You can read the programme for the weekend here (swedish/sami), and visit the facebook event here. See you in Ammarnäs!
May
04
Last weeks workshop was a real boost for the whole team! We had a 3,5 hour long session with 18 participants from different schools in Tornio, and they worked HARD!
We started off with the regular warming up exercises and then went on to some creativity boosting and post-it writing. We have kept changing the workshop a bit for every new place we’ve been to and it feels like we managed to find the magic workshop mix in Tornio. We got the seriousity, the fun and games, and the tour and the participants produced some fantastic stuff.
Here is the list of ideas for The Reggae Rock and Rights Tour:
Group 1
Camping
Summer
Tents, field
Teams compete (sweden/norway etc with own flags)
1 week
middle of summer
music festival
different bands, both famous and not so famous
different genres
shops with fan stuff
drive-in movie maraton, somewhere dark, sleep day and night watch movies
costume parties
carnival
marathons
swimming competition in Tornio river
grafitti walls
Group 2
Big event, people from all around
Cape east (biggest sauna around, in Haparanda, takes 200 people)
Whole weekend
Summer
Get to know people
Include a big event
Carnival at hallituskatu. First police cars, then marching orchestra, stage on wheels with dancers
Music festival, 1 day
Rock, pop and more genres
Small workshops to try instruments
Model fashion show
Competitions between countries
Money raid
Group 3
Summer
Music festival 2 days
Rock, reggae, metal, drum’n’bass
Outdoors
Sport event
Skate
Minigolf
Floorball
Sovver
Beach partey + volley
Fashion show with models from all four countries
Cool cars
Group 4
All weekend
Cape east
Music near festival
All kinds of music
Bungy jump – or something else wild
Good food – important
Fashion show – also fashion for men!
In the sauna music tooo
Crazy!
Group 5
Music festival
Outside
3 days
1 rock
2 rnb, hiphop, rap
3 pop
Parties
Over 16 years
Time 20 – 02
Bubble team beach show horror good DJ
Cheap, low price tickets
Movies
Food from different countries
Extreme sports
Carnival
Tree jumping tower
Group 6
2-3 days
in the shopping centre + at the main street
decorated street
tent for arts
bands playing
sports next to the area
rally race at parking
sky diving
bungy jumping
special sports opportunities, things we cannot do here other times
Island of Happaraanta
Boat
If during winter fireworks
Shopping centre
New things to buy that we can’t buy regularly
Costume party
Live in tents
The participants also discussed these questions in groups:
1. How do we want to be treated?
2. How are we getting treated?
3. How do we want to treat each other?
4. What should be our rights?
They then presented for the rest of the group rights that they have, want to have or should have, out of the discussions. These are some of the rights that the group brought up:
- Everybody shall be treated equally, no matter the race
- Do what you want without hurting others
- Equality
- Education should be free and available
- Freedom of religion, not to make others think like you. It is not the best way to make others happy.
- A safe society
- Labour
- Right to be accepted the way you are
- Food, water, home
- Treat others the way you wish to be treated
- Should be able to say our opinions aloud
- No racism
- Right to live
- Right to eat whatever you want
- Right to be happy and do whatever you want to do
The outcome of this exercise, and the outcome from the other workshops we have had, is the foundation of the rights part of The Reggae Rock and Rights Tour. We have struggled a bit in finding the right approach to the rights, how to make in local and relevant for the participants, but I think that we have found the way now!
In all, we’re happy and thankful for this workshop. To our Tornio crew: you people are awesome!
Apr
27
This is how it looked like in our shared room when we got here last night:
Halvard concentrates..
...and so does Jens.
Apr
20
The snow is melting here in Umeå, and I’m sat at the office all days writing status reports and scanning opportunities for the future of The Reggae Rock and Rights Tour. But the nearest future is set: we are leaving for Tornio on Monday!
Our hero Risto from the Barents Regional Youth Council (BRYC) has prepared lots of great stuff for us to do, and we are looking forward to three days of finnish fun. We will hold a workshop with youth from the local youth council and different NGO’s and also meet the youth leader and youth secretary at the municipality when we are there. Can’t wait to get there!
Photo: Adam Wännman Zetterqvist
Maybe not the best pic, but you can see me and Risto on the far end of the table. From BRYC’s annual meeting in February.
..this pic dont have anything to do with the rest, but Halvard is happy as always.
Over and out! /ylva
The Reggae Rock and Rights Tour 