The challenges and opportunities regarding the status and education of minority languages are shared by Finland, Sweden and Norway as they all have minority language groups, common cultural history and northern location with long distances.
The main objective of the Interreg Aurora funded project Roots and Future is to advance the collaboration in minority language education across the borders and strengthen the language skills and confidence to speak neighbouring languages. The project intends to address the challenge of mental, social, and educational barriers regarding minority languages, the geographical challenge concerning access to language education and the challenge of decreasing population and maintaining workforce in the area.
The project also intends to seize the opportunity presented by increasing interest in using minority languages and embracing the rich cultural heritage of the area.
The project activities focus on four languages: Kven, Meänkieli, Finnish spoken in Sweden and Swedish spoken in Finland. Knowledge about the history, status and culture relating to these languages and information about working, studying and internship opportunities are increased, language skills enhanced, and cross-border networks strengthened by digital language cafes, webinars, lectures and study visits.
The project inspires to use and study languages and raises the interest in and appreciation for minority languages. Increased awareness of the region and its history, culture and job opportunities also increases regional attractiveness. From the regional point of view the project will also support regions ability to retain residents and employees.
The main target groups are:
1) Students who are adult minority language users/carriers of Meänkieli and Finnish spoken in northern Sweden or those who are interested in Meänkieli and Finnish in Sweden.
2) Higher education students at Oulu University of Applied Sciences who study Swedish as a second national language in Oulu.
3) Minority language users/carriers of Kven in northern Norway or persons who are interested in Kven
4) Minority language education actors and their students and teachers from Finland, Sweden and Norway in participating organizations.
Digital language cafes are also offered to citizens of Oulu in 2026 when Oulu is European Capital of Culture.
Project results will be published on this website as well as on the website of the project coordinator.
Contact information:
Katriina Klemola, Katriina.klemola@oamk.fi
Arja Martinviita, arja.martinviita@svefi.net
Tor Helge Reinsnes Moen, tor.helge.moen@alta.kommune.no
