The BRYC team

This is how happy the BRYC crew is after a great annual meeting in Luleå last week. In the front you see our new chair person Ksenia Kipurova (Arkhangelsk) who will chair BRYC for the coming year! Congrats Ksusha and congrats the whole of BRYC to have chosen such a good leader! To her left is the vice chair person John Asle Somby (Finnmark). Around them you see their happy team!

The new board is as follows: Ksenia Kipurova (Russia), John Asle Somby (Norway), Halvard Rundberg (Indigenous people), Risto Ukkonen (Finland) and Ylva Maria Pavval (Sweden).

It feels great to leave my position as the BRYC chair person after two wonderful years, and I’m looking forward to see the new directions where Ksusha will lead us.

Annual meeting 2010

We’ve just arrived to Luleå for the annual meeting which will start tomorrow. We have plenty of exciting things on the agenda, like electing the new board, a new chairperson and have some great sauna time in the hotel sauna. We will do a lot of work with our upcoming event which will be a FUN festival in Kirkenes this fall. Will let you know more about it after the meeting, where we are to decide loads of things. We’ll also be discussing our wishes for what to include in the new Barents Youth Programme from 2011. And we’ll have theatre coach Jens Choong to do some workshops with us. Can’t wait for us to start!

Barents Lucia

The board of BRYC, caught singing the Lucia song in four different languages during a meeting last year.

Niejda – chicks in Sápmi

You remember the BRYC event of 2008? Yeah Right! – A human rights workshop on human rights:

One of the ideas from Yeah Rights! was discussion clubs for saami girls, where teenagers can meet up and talk about different topics in a safe environment. Different organisations like Amnesty and the Red Cross have discussion clubs like that for both boys and girls in Sweden, but nothing for the indigenous people.

So BRYC have developed the idea together with the swedish saami youth organisation Sáminuorra, and we have come up with an suggestion for how a saami version would be. Now we’re inviting everyone interested to an open meeting in Jokkmokk on January the 7th.

Welcome!

/ylva

Happy birthday Laila!

To Laila, the amazing secretary of the Barents Regional Youth Council.

D E C L A R A T I O N

D E C L A R A T I O N

Adopted September 19^th 2009 by the participants of

“ReACTion”- A workshop against prejudice

Arkhangelsk 16.-20.September 2009

We, the participants of the Workshop “ReACTion” are youth representatives from Norway, Russia, Finland and Sweden.

We recognize the Declaration on Human Rights and other declarations encouraging the objective perception of people with various viewpoints and beliefs, building on tolerance and fight against prejudice.

We understand the importance of international youth cooperation, dissimilation of information and cultural exchange between young people in the Barents Euro-Arctic Region;

It’s necessary to join efforts to break various forms of social, religious, racial, sexual, and other forms of intolerance among youth and people in general.

We call for a society based on the principles of democracy. And underline the importance of protecting the rights of minorities, their way of life and the right to choose your own sexual identity.

We are ready to take active part in the work against prejudice and we stress the value of a free press and the freedom of expression.

We suggest the following actions:

• Secure youth participation in international work and the involvement of disabled people in different activities
• Increase the number of international youth initiatives
• Prioritize democracy building, for instance trough informal meetings with policy makers
• Create international arenas in order to exchange ideas and views e.g. Camps and exchange programs
• Implement projects that increase cultural competence based on the principle ”Diversity is the Barents identity”

To make this possible we need to take concrete measures including:

• Continue the non-bureaucratic and youth-friendly financial funds provided though The Barents Regional Youth Program. To develop it further into a multilateral fund in order to facilitate international youth initiatives in the Barents Region. Establish other forms of financial support that aims to strengthen youth cooperation in the High North
• Support the Barents Regional Youth Council and projects that provides concrete experiences with democracy practices, involvement and the realization of own project ideas.
• Continue to provide the facilitation service for multilateral youth work in the region, the Barents Youth Cooperation Office (BYCO).

We believe that an open and tolerant society is necessary to create an attractive and sustainable Barents Region.

We are the present and the future. We are able to change it!

reACTion!

THANK YOU everyone for an amazing few days!

I am in Arkhangelsk where we just finished out event reACTion – a theatre workshop against prejudice. These last five days was aboslutely fantastic. Around 50 people gathered from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, everyone ready to leave any shyness behind and together with the group face their prejudices and use them to create a GREAT theatre show.

The swedes and norwegians waiting for the flight from Moscow to Arkhangelsk.

Team building activities at the outdoor museum Malie Karelie.

The BRYC member Ksenia jumping it!

These were some photos from the first days. After that, I left my camera at the room. But I saw plenty of people with big cameras around. Maybe someone else could upload some pics?

Also, please join our facebook group reACTion to get in touch with the other participants!

Täfteåfestivalen and board meeting

In Umeå the rain is pouring down and I’m looking through the sunny photos from the weekend. BRYC had a board meeting in Umeå on saturday talking mainly about the reACTion – the BRYC event of 2009. We have now decided the programme and planned how to organise the 60 people we want to make a show about prejudice. This will be great, probably the greatest event in BRYC:s history so far! We are excited to be able to make something else than a conference and still concentrate on serious stuff.

One wonderful thing is that we are bringing Glesbygd’n with us to Arkhangelsk! Glesbygd’n is a reggae band from Västerbotten in Sweden and friday night we went to see them perform at Täfteåfestivalen. A short video from their gig:

On saturday night the band Alit Boazu from Kåfjord/Troms, Norway, were playing at Täfteåfestivalen. I was dancing to much to film any other song but here is a video of one of the slower ones:

Thanks to the amazing board of BRYC coming: Ksenia (our Arkhangelsk/Russian representative in the board), Halvard (sami/indigenous), Adam (Västerbotten/Sweden), Jörn Eirik (Nordland/Norway) and Rosa (Kainuu/Finland). You guys made it a productive and FUN weekend!