Koster At the end of April, Koster hosts two days of workshops about islands and island life. One is about how island councils can become more significant, one about how young people view life on an island. All within the framework of a new EU project.
Marita Adamsson
Helena von Bothmer, founder of Kosters Trädgårdar and for many years volunteering with the development of the islands, is responsible for the workshop on island councils. The second, about young islanders, is held by Matthes Sierk, a Dutchman and now Kosterbo, with his home in a sailboat in Ekenäs harbor.
The EU project includes a number of islands, organisations, universities and colleges in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France and the Netherlands. Helena von Bothmer describes the islands as mutually different - and at the same time with similar conditions. Among the participants are, for example, Koster's closest neighboring islands, Norwegian Hvaler, but also the large Danish island of Bornholm, an island in French Brittany and Dutch Friesland, which took the initiative for the project.
- They have completely different conditions and different organization, but the problems with, for example, high house prices and difficulties in living all year round are everywhere.
In Sweden, Högskolan Väst is one of the members and leads the work package within the project that deals with management and governance, for example how politicians can work with island development. This is where the island council comes in.
We can get help from outside and learn how other islands work
Before the upcoming workshop, the Koster residents will be given questions about what they think a good island council should look like, and this autumn the idea is that an island council with innovative thinking should be implemented.
- We can get help from the outside and find out how other islands work, says Helena von Bothmer.
She wants an island council that really matters.
- Not just advice for one-way communication.
- We want to know how to develop the island councils and improve the relationship with the municipality, says Matthes Sierk.
He is working with workshop number two, about ways of life and meeting places for young islanders and interviews young Koster residents as best he can.
- In the last five years, young people have moved here and all of them are closely connected to Kosters Trädgårdar, he says.
They rather moved to Koster despite the problems,...
An important question is why they moved here, he believes, and begins by explaining what was not the reason for moving to the island.
- They didn't move here because there are problems with the school, housing and water.
Rather, they moved to Koster despite the problems, and it was about finding a balance between themselves and nature, that there was a society where people know each other and together do something significant, he says.
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He himself is an example of a young immigrant. He was at Koster's cultural festival, met Stefan von Bothmer and through him got in touch with young immigrants.
- I got the feeling that everyone liked the place and that they were doing something meaningful. I decided that evening that this is where I want to live.
In January 2022, he moved into a boat in Ekenäs harbour. Now he has a job in the EU project via the University West, an important fact given that until now the development of the island has almost always been driven by non-profit working islanders, who often testified that there would also be a need for someone who devoted himself to Koster's development on working hours.
Those of us who have worked for many years easily get caught up in saving things and we don't have time to think about basic values.
Now both he, as a new Koster zealot, and Helena, as an old non-profit working zealot, hope that the new collaboration will provide new perspectives and new ways of looking at the situation and development.
- Those of us who have worked for many years easily get stuck in saving things and we don't have time to think about basic values, says Helena.
That is, one stops at the first question in Matthe's line of different questions. The one that applies to what. The answers there are easy to see: schools, housing, home care and so on are needed.
- No one questions it. But try also asking why several times.... We need a different conversation, says Helena von Bothmer.