Nordic civil society must be involved and engaged in Nordic co-operation
NAPA involves civil society both through the Culture Support Programme, our own projects and our own resources. We have acted as secretariat for the start-up of the Nordic Association in Greenland, and arranged Nordic Day 2021 together. We work closely with political leadership and administrative leadership in various arenas in Greenland.
In 2021, NAPA has also worked to make visible the barriers that exist for Greenlandic cultural actors to be able to be part of Nordic art and culture dissemination to the world. It is first and foremost about large travel expenses. Greenlandic cultural actors have to spend much more money on transport than cultural actors traveling from the other Nordic countries. It is also about recognition and motivation. Greenlandic cultural actors do not necessarily look to the Nordic countries. For example, a closer community and greater recognition is expressed in cooperation with Canada. NAPA aims to help Greenlandic cultural actors want to share their knowledge and expertise both with the rest of the Nordic region and around the world.
NAPA started the instagram account @dagens_nordiske_ord (Nordic word of the day) to make visible the differences in the languages in the Nordic countries and arouse an interest and recognition of the different languages. NAPA stands out strongly in linguistic discussions in the Nordic co-operation in order to draw attention to the barriers that exist in communication between people from the various Nordic countries.
We therefore participated in a panel debate in the webinar “Does the Nordic Region have a language community?” arranged by the Nordic Council of Ministers. We were allowed to express our concerns for the Nordic language community.
We are in danger of developing an A-team and a B-team in the Nordic region.
Those who have Scandinavian as their first language can excel in their mother tongue in collaborative meetings and various arenas. Those who have one of the Scandinavian languages as their second language take up less space, are less heard and can in many ways become a B-team in the Nordic countries.
NAPA has made it our task to report on the differences in the Nordic region. We do this precisely to help us know and understand each other better. In this way, we can build a common, equal Nordic trust.