Iceland review - 2019, Page 46

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Iceland Review
Borgarfjörður eystri, a village home to nearly 100
residents and located in the far east of Iceland, is
about as far from Reykjavík as one can possibly get
without actually leaving the country. In the recent past,
the village has seen their population grow smaller,
their school losing students, services reducing, and
ultimately, the closure of their only grocery store – a
major blow to the community’s spirit. Borgarfjörður
eystri’s impending fate seemed, to all those from the
outside, rather certain; as globalisation increases, so
too does the movement of people from rural areas to
urban centres. Such has been the case in a number of
small villages across Iceland as well, as people steadily
relocate to Reykjavík in search of all that life in a small
village cannot provide. A life that can offer a wealth of
accessible services, larger communities, economic and
social diversity, and – perhaps most crucially – viable
employment opportunities.
Fragile villages
On the verge of becoming just another ghost town in
Iceland, a skeleton of vacant buildings that crudely
reminds of a once thriving past – much like former
villages Djúpavík, Gjögur, and Ingolfsfjörður in the
Westfjords – Borgarfjörður eystri was given a sec-
ond chance. Fragile Villages (Brothættar byggðir)
is a programme that was envisaged by the Regional
Development Agency in 2012. With the goal of revital-
ising rural communities throughout Iceland suffering
from sharp population decline, housing shortages,
and ailing services, Fragile Villages offers the tools
needed to jumpstart struggling communities, like
Borgarfjörður eystri, on both practical and social levels.
“The primary goal of the programme is to stop
depopulation in our most vulnerable communities,”
explains Kristján Þ. Halldórsson, one of the pro-
gramme’s managers and original founders. “But this is
quite a tough goal and we certainly don’t know whether
we will be able to do so.
Funded by Alþingi – the National Parliament of
Iceland – Fragile Villages offers select villages in
need grants of around ISK 5-7 million ($40,500-
56,700/€36,300-50,800) per year to put towards a
clearly defined goal. These goals, though varied from
village to village according to their specific needs,
often include job creation, road renovation, jumpstart-
ing services, and even the installation of high-speed
internet. In terms of leadership, project managers,
including local residents and representatives from
the Regional Development Agency, are appointed
to each community and tasked with leading discus-
sions regarding possible plans for economic growth.
Monthly meetings are held in each village where goals
are clearly outlined, refined, and strategised.
Bottom-up approach
Beyond providing monetary support, although critical,
Fragile Villages is also heavily focused on increasing
local participation in communal development and
ultimately empowering people to strategise new ways
forward – in short, the programme focuses on shifting
collective mindset and nurturing a sense of hope.
“We do more than just facilitate development
through funding,” explains Eva Pandora Baldursdóttir,
another one of the project’s managers. “We place a
lot of emphasis on collaboration between the locals
and the government and think of the project as a
bottom-up endeavour rather than top-down. We don’t
come into communities to offer tailor-made solutions
but rather help the locals build their own successful
futures. A village’s success is therefore largely based
on the involvement of the locals.”
This level of freedom that the project gives com-
munities boils down to allowing them to do with the
funds what they wish – for better or for worse. This
also means that residents must take the initiative to
plan their goals meticulously; to do this, there needs to
be a cohesive vision of success within each village – a
community spirit, of sorts. Staying positive in the face
of your home’s decline can be a challenge for residents
involved in the programme, many of whom have found
the term “Fragile Villages” rather hopeless and yet
another reminder that their communities are, indeed,
fragile.
“We have thought to change the name of the
programme but haven’t done so because it’s a work-
ing name for the whole project. Instead, each com-
munity is also given their own name. For example,
Borgarfjörður eystri is called Betri Borgarfjörður
[Better Borgarfjörður],” Eva explains.
Empowering residents
Despite the possible negative connotation of the proj-
ect’s title, the support the programme has provided
“THE PRIMARY GOAL OF THE PROGRAMME
IS TO STOP DEPOPULATION IN OUR
MOST VULNERABLE COMMUNITIES.
BUT THIS IS QUITE A TOUGH GOAL."