Fjarvinnuaðstaða í Grímsey
Kvenfélagið Baugur í Grímsey breytti rými sem áður hýsti leikskóla í félagsheimilinu Múla, í vinnuaðstöðu fyrir fólk sem vill dvelja í eynni og vinna fjarvinnu. Kvenfélagið fékk styrk upp á eina og hálfa milljón króna í verkefnið frá byggðaþróunarverkefninu Glæðum Grímsey. Aðstaðan var tekin í notkun í mars, hún rúmar eins og stendur vinnuaðstöðu fyrir þrjá en getur hæglega nýst fleirum. Rýmið var málað og parketlagt, keyptir skrifstofustólar og stillanleg borð.
Aðstaðan hefur nú þegar komið að góðum notum og hafa aðilar frá Háskólanum á Hólum, Samtök Sveitarfélaga á Norðurlandi eystra og einkaaðilar nýtt sér hana. Aðstaðan er öllum í boði sem vilja dvelja í eyjunni. Hægt er að hafa samband við kvenfélagið í eyjunni til að bóka aðstöðuna fyrir vægt gjald. Áhugasamir geta hringt í síma 8655110.
Einn af þeim sem nýtir sér aðstöðuna þessa dagana er ítalski rithöfundurinn Leonardo Piccione sem vinnur að bók sem koma á út í vor. Við látum viðtal við hann fylgja sem er á ensku:
Most visitors come to Grímsey from May until September, but others seek more quieter time of the year like Leonardo Piccione from Italy who decided to seek the tranquility of Grímsey for his work of creativity. We therefor asked Leonardo to tell us a bit about himself and how he ended up in Grímsey.
Leonardo says: I come from Corato, a town of 50,000 not far away from Bari, in Italy's heel. I grew up in a rather big family, a common feature in Southern Italy. This is the reason why when I first told my parents about Grímsey they replied: 'It's an amazing place, but there are too few people... Aren't you lonely up there?!' When I speak with them on the phone, I always need to tell them that I'm not actually so lonely here! There are other people, and they are all super friendly!
In 2015 I completed a PhD in Statistics in Padua, but straight after it I felt I needed a big change. I realized that maybe it was the right time to finally visit Iceland, a country I was in love with since the elementary school, when I had first noticed that tiny island in a far corner of Europe's map. That same summer I came to Iceland for one week, as a tourist. Since then, I have kept coming back with increasing frequency. In 2016 I decided to write a book about my love for this land and started to collect stories about Icelandic volcanoes: when it came to Askja, I found out about the Apollo astronauts' trainings in the '60s before the Moon landing. I discovered that in Húsavík there is a museum (The Exploration Museum) dedicated to that story, so I just moved up to North Iceland in order to learn more and in 2019 the book IL LIBRO DEI VULCANI D'ISLANDA got published.
Last year, at the end of August, I came to Grímsey for a couple of days. I knew about the island, but for some reasons I never really considered a trip here before. I was one of the last visitors that summer, and I immediately felt that there was something special about this tiny island on the Arctic Circle. Something was trying to communicate with me, and that required me to come back, to spend more time here to find out what this place wanted to tell me, or what I was looking for.
I therefore returned in March and plan to stay here for about 6 weeks in total, finishing my newest book and starting a new writing project which will be linked to this island. I am walking along the cliffs. I am learning about legends that might be true stories and true stories that might be legends. I am talking to my thirty-or-so fellow humans. I am reading, I am cooking, I am listening - and the island is opening up for me. I think that any activity requiring creativity is blessed on this island. If you want to write, or compose, or paint, here you have all you need. The time, the space, a silence broken only by the waves and the wind - at least until millions of birds come back and take possession of the island
