Year 2008 was eventful and partly very satisfied year for Nordic Cooperation (NC). We achieved regular things like meetings but also something new and a bit exiting too. In the end of the year we found an agreement about our main goals in NC, which we formulated like this:
Nordic Cooperation works to ensure:
- §1 that the Alliance and the member countries does all they can to promote children and youth involvement in the member countries.
- §2 that the member countries within the NC strengthen and support each other.
- §3 that children and youth movements connected to SC is strengthened and encouraged in youth initiatives.
NC had two International Youth coordinators funded with Youth in Action European Voluntary Service (EVS) program money. They were Frida Mörtlund and Eldrid Siem. Frida worked from January to December in Oslo; exchange between Sweden and Norway. Eldrid started her work at October in Stockholm; exchange between Norway and Sweden.
Our first Nordic meeting was in Oslo in February 2nd-3rd. That is where NC increased when Finland took a part at the meeting first time.
In May 10-12th NC had a huge opportunity to organise a workshop to Members meeting within Save the Children Alliance (SCA) in South Korea, Seoul. Workshop was about how children and youth are active in SC all over the world including best practises from each organisation. Frida, Tove and Kirsten were the representatives of the NC.
17-18th of June we had a Nordic-mini-meeting in Stockholm about SCA ongoing strategy process and EVS future. We also met Rachel Maranto from the secretariat of SCA working with Rewrite the future campaign. At a short moment, we thought to have Rachel working for NC as a part-time International coordinator, too. Unfortunately this plan didn't happen. We also thought we could take part of the SCA strategy process by having a representative in every strategy group. That was something we planned very carefully and we voted for our representatives in the meeting. Eventually either this didn't happen.
Our biggest act of the year was Nordic Summer Festival in Kärsögården, Stockholm in 4-9th of August. The festival had almost 300 youth members from all over the world, especially within Nordic countries. The week was filled with meetings, workshops, concerts, discussions and fun time related to the work for children's rights.
30th-31st of August we had a Nordic meeting in Stockholm. There we continued our work with the strategy process but EVS things too. We also made an evaluation about Nordic Summer Festival.
27th of October we had our last Nordic meeting in the year 2008. We discussed about a structure of NC and made a decision about our main goals. We also made plans for the next year and did evaluation of the past year.
What we though were satisfying within NC in the year 2008 was that we have put needs and aims forward which improves the whole cooperation. Satisfying was also that Finland has joined in NC and has got very important support from NC about developing its own youth activity. We also though, thanks to NC, children and youth knowledge in SCA has growth during the year.
What we though were dissatisfying was that there was a lack of communications inside NC but also from NC to other youth members outside NC. As well a lack of structure within NC doesn't always make things easy. We though we should have prepared more our meetings, delegates in NC, communication and participations in others national meetings and happenings. These are some of our challenges of developing next year.
[written 12th June 2009]
