Last weekend, The Red Cross and The Immigration Office (Útlendingastovan) organized the very first Intercultural Family Retreat to be held in The Faroe Islands with 15 families attending. Jóannes Eidesgaard, chairman at The Red Cross, welcomed the participants with these words:

"On behalf of the Faroe Islands Red Cross, I sincerely want to welcome all participants in this family retreat – first of all the families and couples who are new to the Faroe Islands - but also the volunteers from Red Cross.

As inhabitants to the Faroe Islands, we are all in the same boat:
o We all live here on these beautiful Islands - Surrounded by the vast North Atlantic Ocean
o We are constantly challenged by the unpredictability of the elements
o We never know how the weather will be tomorrow
o We live together, and with each other.

While we, as a group, are in the same boat together, we are at the same time different as individuals. We come from different backgrounds, some from distant cultures and countries far away.

The poet says "Variety is the spice of life" – and so, this difference, which this family retreat is founded upon, is also what brings us together.

The Red Cross of the Faroe Islands is bound to assist all groups of people, without discriminating anyone based on politics or religion – but especially those who face some grave challenge in their lives.

This family retreat is meant to make it possible for different cultures to meet in the Faroe Islands, and to shed light on, that you are all welcome.

As you may know Red Cross has a lot of main principal things which we work for. Among these goals we really want to be a part of a succesful integration. Integration in many western countries has not been especially successful, so our goal is to do it better. One of our most succesful goals has been the visiting service to elderly people. Our volunteers visit the elderly people both at home and at elderly homes. Another part of our activity is what we call Sambinding. Sambinding is a meeting between new arrivals to the islands and original inhabitants. They meet once a month in the local library, have a cup of coffee and talk together about everyday problems. When it comes to a succesful integration we need a lot of a partners. The Parliament, the Government, the city councils, the labour market, volunteer organisations as Red Cross, the education system and of course new arrvials with motivation and a positive will to make a successful integration. As I can see from the program for the retreat, there are some very interesting lectures all beginning tomorrow.

We in Red Cross have together with Útlendingastovuni organized this retreat. Our wish is, that it will be as successful as possible both to you as new arrivers to the islands as well as for our volunteers, so that we already now can prepare it as an annual event

Once again: Be very welcome to Nesvík.

Thank you."

If you want to participate in the work on integration as conducted by The Red Cross, please contact us on redcross@redcross.fo. As Jóannes said, Sambinding is already running, we will arrange yet another Intercultural Family Retreat next year, and very soon we will establish Family Networks connecting Faroese families with families from immigrant backgrounds. All of our projects are open for immigrants and Faroese volunteers to join.

This years Intercultural Family Retreat was sponsored by:
- BR
- Hiddenfjord
- Hotel Føroyar
- Jógvan Weihe
- Leguhúsið Nesvík
- Poul Hansen
- P/F Poul Michelsen
- Sunda Kommuna
- Varðin
- Vøruhúsið ... Sí meira ..Sí minni ..

2 vikur síðan