Indigenous peoples: language, culture and life cycle — Welcoming remarks

Dear Listeners,

On behalf of the Sámi Parliament in Finland I want to warmly welcome you all to discuss today and tomorrow on indigenous persons with disabilities and multiple discrimination that they are exposed to, taking special account of people with dementia.

My name is Janne Hirvasvuopio and I am a member of the Social Affairs and health committee in the Sámi Parliament in Finland and the representative of the Sámi Parliament in Advisory Board for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

First, we would like to thank all the organizers; Nordic Welfare Centre, Nordic dementia network, Council of Nordic Cooperation on Disability, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Sámi Soster, Advisory Board for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and Finnish Human Rights Centre, for the hard work to make this webinar happen. 

Planning of this event started by the initiative of Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare last autumn 2020. It is thus a great pleasure to be here today with you and change ideas and views on this extremely important topic.

When discussing persons with disabilities, or on discrimination faced by them, people often stay at very general level. Indigenous peoples or peoples belonging to minorities are not specifically or particularly taken into a consideration and multiple discrimination, that they are exposed to, is not recognized at different levels in the Nordic societies.

When it comes to the rights of indigenous persons with disabilities, the topic is often approached from very one-sided perspective. Intersectional approach to the rights of indigenous persons with disabilities is still at the margins in our societies. Thus, we truly hope that by providing platforms for discussions we can change this situation. 

For us Sámi, our people, living with or without disabilities, are important and valuable members of our society. As indigenous persons, Sámi with disabilities also have the right to their own languages and their own culture throughout their whole life cycle. This should, of course, be self-evident, but when it comes to minorities in societies, majority groups view them too often as one homogenous group. The needs of those people representing minorities within minorities are not recognized well enough. We hope that this will change in the future and different backgrounds of people will be considered while making decisions, finding solutions or developing new technologies and assisting devices to help people in their everyday lives.

We hope that this webinar will develop and add discussions and understanding on this topic and bring new concrete ideas to the table. We also hope that after this webinar these concrete ideas will turn into concrete actions in order to improve the situation of indigenous persons with disabilities. 

On behalf of the Sámi Parliament and on my own behalf, I wish you all a great seminar and fruitful discussions.

Thank you.

Janne Hirvasvuopio, member of the Social Affairs and health committee in the Sámi Parliament in Finland, representative of the Sámi Parliament in Advisory Board for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities