The 15th annual Forum conference

The beautiful voices from the children of Prestvannet School opened the the 15th annual Forum conference, which extends for the next three days with presentations and discussions about education, learning And Indigenous peoples` rights.

The vice dean at The Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education at UiT, Marie-Theres Federhofer, said in her opening speech that the conference is meaningful and engaging. She also expressed her happiness of how the Centre for Sami Studies make both local and international efforts very visible. Federhofer also expressed her high appreciation of the cooperation between the Forum for development cooperation and the Centre for Sami Studies on one side, and the research programme Scales of Governance: UN and Indigenous Peoples (SOGIP) in Paris on the other side.

In the roundtable at the beginning of the conference, the speakers engaged in a conversation on issues and challenges related to indigenous peoples and education after the launch of the United Nations’ Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

The first day of the conference included voices from all over the world, from six continents. This was made visible when the participants from Australia, June Rose and Kim Anderson, presented their gifts from the Aboriginal peoples of Australia to the Sami, represented by Else Grete Broderstad, academic director at the Centre for Sami Studies (as seen in the picture).