Here are some links and information about village-owned companies in Vuollerim at the Arctic Circle in Sweden.

The district of Vuollerim has about 800 inhabitants, 60 companies, 40 non-profit associations and 7 cooperative business for the common good in Vuollerim. Traditionally the district has embraced entrepreneurship and taking initiative. Vuollerim has been very good at taking advantage of local resources and capabilities, that exist in any community, and has done something with all that. The funny thing is that this tradition continues on and on with new exciting projects all the time!

The most important thing Vuollerim would like to share with the world, is that any neighborhood, any village, company or municipality can do the same with their own resources!

Equal teamwork in Vuollerim

Crowdsourcing in Vuollerim, this 3-minute film showcases various examples. This film was for instance presented at SOCAP Europe, Amsterdam 2011 in the panel "How you turn your city into a place for innovation".

Vuollerims economic association. This first village-owned company was born in 1999 to save the hardware store that had closed down and was about to be demolished. The association recognized how essential the hardware store was for Vuollerim and it’s surroundings and bought the property, which was run as a multifunction store called ‘The Greenhouse’, in the middle of the village. The association has around 100 members.

Visions in the district of Vuollerim AB, VIVA was founded in 2006 and has as of today just over 150 co-owners. VIVA manages the inn, Hotel Vuollerim, a year-round open hotel. The 16 rooms have been adopted and decorated by villagers and they have been named after various hamlets and locations found in the district of Vuollerim. The inn serves homemade home cooking from scratch with a big heart and a warm smile.

Vuollerims Charter School, "A good small school". This village-owned company was founded in 2009 and has over 100 co-owners. The reason to start a charter school in the district of Vuollerim was to ensure there was a complete primary school education available in the village, now and in the future. This had become a concern after the municipality's decision to close down the elementary school in Vuollerim for the ages 6 to 9. Facebook.

Lapland Vuollerim Welcomes You AB was founded by VIVA as a project with the working title "The bundling shed". It became an independent limited company in 2010 with approximately 50 co-owners. This tourism company bundles and markets activities and experiences in the district of Vuollerim. Just in this small company alone, the district has expanded from 0 to 50 products in only a few years time. In it’s vision statement, Lapland Vuollerim Welcomes You AB describes it’s ambition to become one of northern Europe's most interesting destinations. In the spring of 2014, the company was named one of the world's best practical examples of sustainable tourism and it was placed in the top three in the world on Innovation 2014! See videos.

The Village Team AB works with teamwork as a business model. Its business idea is based on taking advantage of local ideas, skills, experience and expertise and with joint effort develop those into unique, locally anchored, sustainable economic enterprises. Which projects the company takes on, depends on what the team is passionate about and which local needs are anticipated. Currently the company engages in producing local music, renting out conference halls and vehicle storage, as well as offering copying and tire services. The Village Team also contributes as a "mentor" and sounding board for the development of new business ideas.

Mathantverket Vuollerim - Arctic Artisan Food House is a business association that takes care of the milk from the last active milk farm in the municipality as well as it runs a small dairy. The purpose of the association is to contribute to an attractive living environment with open countryside and diversity, to sustainable development, increased employment and to strengthening the local economy through small-scaled innovative local food processing and food production. All future profits will be reinvested for local development in the district.

Vuollerim Farm ensures an important part of Jokkmokk by preserving and raising the native Swedish mountain breed, opening the landscape and by locally producing dairy products. With the farm and dairy in place, there are plenty of ideas and opportunities to further refine other products for local sales, such as meat and milk. Also there is the possibility to start the breeding of additional animals, like chickens or sheep. There is even the prospect of developing activities for recreation and rehabilitation through ‘green care’, as well as tourism activities such as ‘Staying on a farm’.

All the above mentioned companies strive to enhance both economic as well as social well-being and growth for the district. All profits for each village owned company are reinvested in the district in one way or the other.

Examples of several other projects

Vuollerims Motor Association has established Vuollerim Karting Ring, the world's northernmost certified race track for karting. An almost impossible project made possible!

Nytänk (To think new) – Youth’s way to make a difference. Nytänk is a project run by and with young people in the Swedish province Norrbotten with it’s base in Vuollerim. Simply put, this project strives to bring together, to enthuse and to support Norrbotten’s youth and it’s ideas. It wants to seize the initiative, commitment and innovation that exists among the youth in Norrbotten. Nytänk works towards youth being a part of both local and regional development. It believes that young people should be involved in building the future of Norrbotten.

Your Own Choice - a musical about daring to be yourself Your Own Choice is a musical that encourages people to dare being theirselves as well as it showcases bullying and standing up against it. A musical against bullying produced and performed by youth from the village with original music, locally written and composed. None of the participating youth had ever been on stage or had sung in public before. The ambition is to make tutorial material available for third parties such as schools or youth centers to be able to arrange their own musical performance. "It is easy to set up a musical."

“The Village of the 1000 Ice Lanterns”. Guinness World Record. The idea of a villager, built on a local tradition, was embraced by many. A stunning example of teamwork for fun, for tradition and for pleasing the eyes of whomever visits the village during the first week of February. Check here

Invest in a Sustainable Future Recently, we have come to understand that what the district of Vuollerim has been doing naturally for years and years, is what we nowadays call ‘social innovation’ and ‘crowdsourcing’. In May 2014, a very exciting conference took place. The Nordics go SOCAP14 was the start of an international exchange on accelerating sustainable social development between the US, Europe and Asia. Vuollerim hosted the kickoff. Click here for a 4-minute summary.

Crowdsourcing Week Arctic Circle During some days in march 2015, 2017 and 2018 Crowdsourcing Week was held in Vuollerim, Sweden.

There was a lot of knowledge exchanged about next edge crowd sourcing. Here you'll find more information about the past events. And here you'll find some more examples from the days.

At present the village can also offer co-working spaces for you who'd like try and share this arctic life style for a while. Let us know if you'd like to come.

Sustainable and Learning Communities

Crowd Doing Vuollerim was a learning event aiming to jointly build digital tools and business models to accelerate sustainable rural development. The event connects communities in USA, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Bridging knowledge and experiences from different areas the challenges of rural development can be addressed by utilizing the local know-how and promote digitalization and digital service innovation. The global teamwork allows cross-border development of new solutions fit for smaller communities.

The work during the event result in a number of prototypes which demonstrate different solutions to specific problems. Also, business models and tools for sustainable development was demonstrated and tested.

Find out more at event page

#Learningsociety #ArcticVillageLab #laplandvuollerim

More articles and videos