VALENTINA SOVKINA.

SPEAKER of the SAAMI PARLIAMENT OF THE KOLA PENINSULA.
DIRECTOR of the KOLA SAAMI RADIO Co. Ltd.

ORIGIN STORY.

ORGANISING TO ADDRESS WOMEN’S ISSUES.

ADVICE TO YOUNG WOMEN.

FACING PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION.

MATRIARCHY IN SAAMI COMMUNITIES.

ALCOHOLISM AND OPPRESSION.

ROLE OF BUSINESS AND EDUCATION.

SAAMI LANGUAGE AND EXPRESSION.

BIOGRAPHY.

Valentina Sovkina is the Speaker of the Saami Parliament of the Kola Peninsula (Kuellnegk Nyoark Sam’ Sobbar), an elective legislature of the Saami ethnic group in Russia. She has a long record of advocating for Indigenous Ethnic Groups in the Arctic after graduating from the Murmansk Pedagogical School. From 2008-2009, she was an Expert on Indigenous Ethnic Groups’ Affairs at the Tundra Agricultural Production Cooperative. She followed this appointment as a Member of a Working Group on Indigenous Ethnic Groups at the Barents Euro-Arctic Council. In 2012, she became the Director of the Kola Saami Radio Co. Ltd. and still currently holds this position.

AUDIO.

These videos are a part of a series of interviews conducted at “Women of the Arctic: Bridging Policy, Research, and Lived Experience”,
a non-academic event co-organized with the UArctic and hosted by the 2018 UArctic Congress at the University of Helsinki 
on September 6-7, 2018.