Klaksvík celebrates diversity

Many immigrants showed up at a special integration event in Klaksvík yesterday.

“It was a good event,” says Heini Ziska Dal, a member of Klaksvík’s integration committee, who has been married to Liezel from the Philippines since 2006.

Many of the attendees took a spin on the city’s skating rink and later sat down to socialise with fellow immigrants while enjoying cocoa and buns.

“It is great to see such diversity and great to see that immigrants are becoming a more visible part of our society,” says Dal.

“I feel that the ‘us and them’ mentality is starting to fade away, which is wonderful. Our integration efforts can always improve, but I think we are definitely moving in the right direction.”

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Daria Zellmer was born and raised in Poland. After a few years living in the United States, she moved to Klaksvík five years ago to live with her Faroese husband.

Also a member of Klaksvík’s integration committee, Zellmer says that moving to a new country is always a challenge.

“The weather was clearly the greatest challenge for me. I was used to 300 days with blue skies a year, and when I came here, I had to get used to 300 dark or grey days a year,” she explains.

“It takes a while to settle in, of course, and it also takes a while for the locals to get used to people from abroad.”

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She eventually learned the Faroese language, which she says helped a lot.

“It’s a two-way street. As long as immigrants and locals show a willingness to learn from each other and about each other, we are on the right track toward successful integration,” she says in perfect Faroese.

“It has worked out well for me. It started with language classes, and then when I became a mum, I started expanding my social circle. My husband’s family have helped me a lot, and all in all, I feel that I have integrated well here.”

Klaksvík’s integration committee meets once a month to discuss integration-related topics and to arrange events such as yesterday’s get-together.

Read the Faroese version of this article here.

More Faroese News in English.