Chapter 3.3 The Gamvik project for youth fishing

Øyvind Berg is currently the head of the Department of Culture of Gamvik Municipality. Between 1977 and 1987 he was working full-time as a professional fisherman in the Barents Sea and around Svalbard. After two years of working here and there he became manager of Mehamn hotel and Lorden, a local restaurant. He was a successful local businessman until 2004, when he was offered the job in the municipal administration. Since he first came to Mehamn in 1977 he has been actively involved in the voluntary sector, mainly in relation to local youth, in everything from sport and snowmobiling, to cabaret and theater, as well as other more informal cultural and social activities in civil society. As leader of the municipal crisis team he has been taking part in most of the up and down turns of the community over the last 10 years. The success of the Youth Fishing project in Gamvik, 2009-13, depended mainly on his leadership and great experience with youth.

Tor Gjertsen is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Tourism and Northern Studies at UiT/The Arctic University of Norway. The last 25 years he has been involved in different projects and programs for business and community development in northern Norway, Russia, and Canada. Between 2006 and 2013, he was the leader of an international Thematic Network on Local and Regional Development on behalf of the University of the Arctic and Finnmark University College, his former employer. Through the Thematic Network and the Gargia conferences for regional development, the main meeting place and forum for discussion of the Network, he has initiated and coordinated several joint international education, research, and development projects and programs between Network members and partners in the Circumpolar North.