Tor Helge Moen, you are the leader of Huset ("The House") in Alta which deals with youth related activities, culture and music. Why has Alta municipality decided to join the Innovation Circle network ?
Alta municipality has previously participated in the IC project (Interreg 3B) and it's almost obvious for all levels in the municipality that we wish to continue the work. A small municipality in the north is totally dependent of networks larger than itself. For me working with young culture creators it's particularly interesting to observe how it's possible to erase the country borders and at the same time keep up the identity. IC's network east of Alta is our natural region (Sweden, Finland, Russia) independent of borders. Alta has during history traded and exchanged cultural impulses and ideas with the territory in the east. Alta is multicultural through a Norwegian, Finnish and Sami population who have lived peacefully together the last centuries. We have traditions of multicultural integration. We try to learn from each other and to explore what binds us together and we try to feel joy in these relations.
Alta is the only municipality in Finnmark with a continued increase in population during the last decades. How will you describe the challenges for Alta today ?
Two things are different between Alta and other municipalities in Finnmark. We are already in a positive development and we have a very young population. This is also challenging. We need to keep up with schools, kinder gardens, preventive social work and infra structure in general. The growth gives us house prices at the same level as large cities. Simultaneously we also experience that young adults are moving to larger cities. It's nothing unhealthy about that, but we want the clever and creative young adults to return back to Alta. We try to make it interesting for them to come back.
Please tell us more about what you are doing at "Huset" and why do you want the leaders and the young ones to join an international network like IC ?
I already mentioned that we want young clever people to return back and to find Alta an exciting place for their work an lives. The possibilities for joining international activities within a network like IC is an argument itself for staying in Alta. "Huset" in Alta is a creative cultural house at 1000 m2 for people between 13 and 25. We are active within music, dance, theater, youth democracy, film etc. The activities at "Huset" is for a big part self governed and created from youths initiatives. To search inspiration, learning and to share experiences with others is maybe in particular important for young people. One example is that every summer we gather bands from the region, inclusive from Russia and Sweden for recording an album. This year 18 bands (70 participants), 4 professional producers (even from Paul Mc Cartney school in Liverpool), songwriters, song pedagogs etc. were gathered in a huge workshop where lots of exciting music was created. At the same time 30 dancers were gathered in a workshop, the kick off for a musical production which will be presented in 2009. In order to keep a high quality level at all this it is necessary to gain experiences, ideas and learning from an environment bigger than ourselves. This goes both for the facilitators and for the performers. The IC network is such an arena for learning and inspiration.
