Spirit of Volunteerism at the Riddu Riddu Festival

“Without volunteers, no festival. It's as simple as that”. This slogan is written at the Riddu website.

For many years, this festival has counted on the spirit of volunteerism.

A Swiss volunteer

‘Sunshine’ is one of these volunteers. He first heard about Riddu Riddu festival from an internet based radio in his home country, Switzerland. He likes the idea of indigenous people celebrating their cultures with music and gathering. That was why he decided to join.

Germans working hard for no money

Falco and Angelica are two young Germans travelling around Norway for five months. They heard about the Riddu festival and decided to visit Northern part of Norway because of this. Almost the whole week, Falco and Angelica worked very hard for no money.

French students cleaning toilets

Myrtille, Jose and Mikola, are French students who spent half of the weekend cleaning toilets and serve food at the festival. The other half of the weekend however, they spent by enjoying good music, films and great atmosphere with interesting people.

They want to promote the cultures of the indigenous people

Most of these volunteers are young people. Easy to guess, they were taking the chance of having free ticket by working there. But more then free tickets, they believe in the objective of the festival, which is to promote the art and cultures of the indigenous people. It seemed that the values supported by the festival have touched these young people who appreciate equality and diversity expressed in performed art and cultures.

Enjoy the work

But they do not feel burdened with the work. They seemed to enjoy it as much as they enjoyed the performances. To Alex for example, a Spanish student who also came to volunteer, the week he spent at the festival was amazing. The people he worked with (read: other volunteers) as well as worked for (read: the indigenous people and the festival audiences) has marked an unforgettable experience of his lifetime.

The ticket office succesfully sold 1 700 tickets this year. Some came to the Riddu festival to perform their art and culture. Some others came to meet other indigenous people. Most people were there simply to enjoy both the performance and the camp life. There were also people who came to simply get drunk. Nonetheless, every body enjoyed, and everybody we interviewed said “This year’s festival is better than last year!”.

Much of this is because of the volunteerism spirit. No volunteer, no festival. Thank you for all the volunteers to make the festival exist!