Bye bye CYB - welcome Research

We have seen, once again, one end of a project, end of the story called Connecting Young Barents.  This project was supported by Enpi Kolarctic and started in the beginning of June 2012. Between kick off-event in Murmansk September 2012 and last meeting in Haparanda/Tornio a couple of months ago happened a lot.

What did we manage to create? I put a small collection photos which show what we did. We created good rock concerts, a lot of documentation, pretty marvelous and unforgettable trips for youngsters and good possibility for youth workers to see practices in different kinds of environments and cultures.

We manage to create a real good, creative and productive network between partners Socium+ and Murmansk Youth House Mr. Pink, Tornio Youth Service, Ungdomshuset Huset Alta and Inari municipal Youth Work. We have to mention Tornio Music House, Undomenshuset Station I Haparanda, Youth Center Vasatokka and Taike of Lapland too. Really cool combination with lot of commitment to work together.

I think quite a lot has been said already earlier. I once again have to praise persons in project, all of them. Nothing to mention in a bad way. We finally got a lot of common trust and respect with each other. Music united youngsters and if there were some second thoughts before the events, so after implementing them there was nothing left. Of cource there are cultural differences but life is… That’s why we do these things. We live near each other so more knowedge and understanding is always a must.

Actually we did more than was originally planned and we put some effort to create even more contacts than we had in the start. At least Rajarocks in 2014 (Vasatokka , January – Rovaniemi , September) were extra. In a way an extra was a contact making mini tour in Lapland in May 2014 too.

What happened with these? Difficult to say. Maybe not so much but something. We had really marvelous presentations about Mr. Pink and Think Mental Fashion + CYB –projects with pretty many persons  at present. But still.  Of cource it’s now a bit difficult with Russia after Ukraine etc. I know that some municipalities don’t send youngsters to Russia these days. That’s not good and I think it’s a mistake to do so even though I can understand the solution. We should do opposite: to do everything for ordinary citizens to co-operate, not to isolate them.

We tried anyway. Some things happened without planning. I wrote an article to Nuorisotyö (Youth work) magazine from Huset. I heard that there has been a delegation from City of Espoo trying to find impressions of Huset style education. I also heard that they managed to get new ideas and Huset people will visit later Espoo. Really cool….

We tried to create connections to Helsinki too. We’ll see, situation and future of Mr. Pink has been unstable for a while. Maybe later something will happen with Theatre Narri. 

We have had some preliminary discussions how to continue. Maybe a new project. We’ll see what happens.  It’s clear that we don’t throw away the network. Anyway we’ll continue, in a way or another.

One thing which is clear because of project or without it is the fact that the Finnish Youth  Research Society with the support of Ministry of Education and Culture will start to make a research regarding young people in the Barents Region.  We already started with the researcher Tomi Kiilakoski. And the place to start was of cource the best one to do this: Youth Center Vasatokka.

It’s Participatory study on youth engagements, mobilities and the localities in the Barents region.  It’s not only the traditional way: researcher with recorder. It it’s doing too. The research will improve participation because the youngsters will have a possibility to express their feelings about their life in the North via using methods of art: music, photo, video, writing, theatre…

So cool… And so nice, we already have continuity with CYB –network….

That’s something.

Skoeoe

And then the rest of photos...