The first meeting of the project partners in Haparanda

Today partners from Alytus music school and Svefi met in Haparanda, Sweden. Svefi's principal Marie Järvinen has made a presentation about Svefi. After the presentation, the partners discussed the current issues with Katarina Persson, teacher from Svefi.

After the discussions, the participants attended an artistic exercise "Creating portrait of yourself". While listening to Norrbotten Rhapsody simphony orchestra, Petter Sundkwist, the conductor, project participants from Alytus music school and emigrant students from Svefi has performed a creative exercise. The aim of the exercise was to adapt to the environment, to learn Swedish language while listening to music and creating, to integrate emigrants into Swedish community. The exercise was carried out by the teachers Saara Pekkarinen and Katarina Persson.

Afterwards, the project participants went on a guided tour around Svefi. The tour was carried out by Annika Kronqvist and Stina Bucht. There is a special, unique design of various styles and periods of time. There are lots of art works at Svefi: paintings, drawings, graphics, ceramics, textile.

After the excursion, everyone watched a movie about Haparanda and listened to a presentation "Dialogue in the dark", which was carried out by Matti Jatkola. The presentation was about problems of the quality of life of blind people, the solvation of those problems by using an app BlindSquare (pioneering accessible GPS navigation).

In all the activities, the guests from Alytus were guided by Katarina Persson. It was a joy to participate in the activities, that took place in a creative, artistic, original environment, full of freedom for creativity.