“Finally, we can feel proud to be indigenous”: An interview with RCN visitor Máret Ingá Länsman

This week, I was deeply heartened to welcome to the College Máret Ingá Länsman, a Sámi language and culture teacher currently undertaking a Master’s in Teacher Education at the Sámi University College up north in Guovdageaidnu, Norway. Ingá comes from a large reindeer herding family in Njuorggán, a town of two hundred some 500 km past the Arctic Circle in the Sámi indigenous homeland. Ingá chose to undertake her week-long traineeship at RCN because she was particularly drawn to the overarching mission of deliberate diversity at the College. How might it be for students from some 90 nationalities to live and study together in the midst of a fjord? What might be the experiences of indigenous RCN students?

When asked about her first impressions of the College, Ingá paused to reflect: “I think that what strikes you most, even more than the landscape, is the sense of warmth, care and community that this place exudes. You cannot help but feel it right away, even as a visitor. The students are also really just something. To study so far away from home, to live in a room with four others, to survive the Nordic winter – they must be resilient and tough! There is a lot that other schools could learn from RCN. Even though I was only here for a week, it is clear that it is a very special place somehow”.

April translates in the northern Sámi language as ‘cuoŋománnu’ – literally meaning the month of the hard, carrying snow. Nights are still below freezing, and the key endeavor amongst reindeer herding families such as Ingá’s is to travel into the tundra to prepare for the reindeer calving season in May. Her two brothers both work as reindeer herders, whilst Ingá and her sister trained to become teachers at the Sámi University College in Guovdageaidnu. The Sámi University College is one of the few universities in the world offering programmes in an indigenous language up to the PhD level. The main working and teaching language is northern Sámi, and indigenous pedagogical methods as well as culturally relevant course materials are heavily emphasised.

During her week at RCN, Ingá attended classes in Geography, Art, Theory of Knowledge, Theatre, and Philosophy. She also led a special sharing circle in the Silent House with RCN indigenous students and allies. It was a cozy evening filled with storytelling, reindeer meat, and ruisleipä (objectively speaking, the best bread of the Nordic region). We discussed the value and survival of indigenous spiritualities, rituals, pedagogical methods, and relationship with the natural world from different indigenous perspectives.

“It’s not always so easy, to get indigenous voices to be heard. Even in the Nordic countries, most Nordic citizens learn so little about us, the Sámi people, in school. This is not the fault of any individual for not knowing – I think that many want to learn more – it is ultimately a decision on the part of each government. Many indigenous peoples face this same struggle. Until we start to educate the younger generations about indigenous histories, cultures, and languages, how can we ever build a bridge?”
As Ingá packs her bags to head back home to Sápmi, she leaves feeling deeply inspired by the sense of community that she encountered during her stay at the College. She thanks all of the teachers and students who warmly welcomed her into their classes, she wishes second years the best of luck during their upcoming exams, and she expresses gratitude to those RCN indigenous students and allies who participated in the sharing circle.

“Many indigenous youth may still lack confidence and need an extra boost in order to be heard. Up in Sápmi, we still have many struggles ahead of us, but we are also living in a special time when more and more Sámi youth can say: finally, we can feel proud to be indigenous! I wonder if one day a special scholarship might be made available for Sámi youth to become part of the UWC community. In the meantime, I thank RCN for making space for indigenous voices here on campus.”

Written by Lisa Jokivirta

As I am writing this I’m in Cape Town, South Africa, one of eleven ports as part of our voyage around the globe. I am travelling with Semester at Sea, a school programme that in short could be described as an American-based floating university. Together with 500 other students, mostly American but also some international, we are studying while at sea and are free to explore the countries while in port. I remember hearing about this programme in my first year of UWC. My world had opened up – just coming to UWC had made me realize how much more there is in the world than my small village back home, and it had made me want to explore it all. In UWC, I had made food with my Moroccan friend, danced Bollywood-dance with my Indian friends and talked about daily life in Vietnam. Being able to travel to all these countries that my friends come from and experience all these things in its natural setting sounded too good to be true.

We talk a lot about the concept of a “single story” here on the ship. How a country (or really almost anything) is not either/or, but both/and. How it is true that China has a lot of pollution, but also has stunning landscapes and nature. How Myanmar has tensions between ethnic groups, but also the most open and friendly people I’ve ever met. How I, in South Africa, have seen the richest areas but also the poorest. I find myself fascinated how each country has so many different sides, and I think it is this fascination that makes me suffer from something that I think many UWCers can relate to – wanderlust.

Growing up on Åland Islands, an autonomous island in the Finnish archipelago where travelling with ferries are part of our daily life, I thought that I should be immune to sea sickness. I was wrong. The waves in the Pacific are different from the ones in the Baltic Sea, and some days it’s just impossible to focus on homework. Days like these I seek up one of my friends and play cards in the restaurant, or watch movie after movie in one of our small cabins. As each UWC nominates two students each year for this program, there are quite a few UWCers on the ship. By sharing the same experience and having the same values, we have grown close and enjoy spending a lot of time together. From them I have learned about daily life in other UWC schools, and how they all have their own personalities. UWC Waterford Kamhlaba (Swaziland) doesn’t have PBL weeks (Project Based Learning), UWC Robert Bosch College (Germany) is off every Wednesday morning to do service work in the community and UWC Li Po Chun (Hong Kong) is located in the outside of the city and has a Starbucks right outside its campus. From them I learned that although our schools operate in slightly different ways, they are all UWC, and they have in some way sculpted us to become part of one big beautiful UWC family.

It is almost a year ago since I graduated from Red Cross Nordic. So many times I have stopped and reflected upon where I would have been today if I wouldn’t have gone to UWC – and with that I don’t mean physically, although South Africa is kind of cool, but rather what my values would have been. In some way that I cannot really put my finger on yet, UWC has lead me into a path of wonder and curiosity, of friendships and a confidence that we can accomplish anything we want. And for that I am immensely thankful.