The Sami competences and health care workers will meet at The Sami Educational Institute in Inari. Photo from Soggsakk.
During the autumn last year, it gradually became clear that the pandemic would put an end to the planned Tournament in Murmansk 2022, and the Board gave a green light to move the event to Northern Finland. Since the beginning of November last year, our Finnish partners have been working to find a solution to ArcticSkills 22, and last week the model was presented for the Board. The preliminary plans were approved and leave no doubt: ArcticSkills will be arranged on the 29th of March in five sites in Lappi, with physical participation from Norway and Sweden and online participation from at least eight sites in the county of Murmansk. As the Project Manager Robert Flatli puts it: “This is a hybrid competition with a lot of challenges, but we will succeed.”
Tour of Lappi
The principal of Lapland Education Centre, REDU, Arkko Taisto, who is involved in the planning of the arrangement together with his colleagues in The Sami Educational centre in Inari and The vocational Consortium Lappia in Tornio,, presented the plan for the Board Members in a meeting last Thursday. The competition will include 15 competences on five different colleges in Lappi.
Heavy machinery operators, car painters, welders, cooks, waiters, plumbers and decorative painters will gather on two different arenas in Rovaniemi. The Vocational consortium of Lappia will host the electricians, E-sport gamers and IT-service workers in Tornio. The hairdressers and motor vehicle mechanics will meet in Kemi and the building constructors are gathered in Muonio. The Sámi Education Institute (SAKK) in Inari will host the competitors in Duodji, Reindeer operations and health care workers.
Murmansk online
There is still a small hope that the participants from Murmansk can overcome the pandemic obstacles and join their Nordic friends on the established arenas, but most likely they will compete online. After last year’s online event we got some experience in this field, and Mattias Söder, who was in charge of the broadcast from Utbildning Nord, has already been involved in the Lappi events. He has established contact and made an agreement with “Mediahuset” in Luleå. If all goes well it will be possible to follow the competences and the ceremonies broadcasted from both the Russian and the Finnish arenas.
Experts and participants only
The Regional coordinator Jani Harju from Lappi and Lappia is content with the solution they have found, but made it clear that this is the next best to a complete physical meeting. “This alternative will not give us the opportunity to invite guests or delegations, but only experts and participants” he expressed with regret.
Next year in Murmansk
Those of you who are looking forward to a full-scale Tournament in the real spirit of ArcticSkills have to wait until next year, when Murmansk will be granted the opportunity the pandemic stole from them this year. The chair of The Board, Svein Tore Jakobsen, keeps the door open and confirms that ArcticSkills now is working for an extension of the project.
