NATO Community Norway and the NAAFI Fund
Thanks to a £9,500 grant from the 2021/2022 NAAFI Fund, the bid team at NATO have been able to purchase a pre-loved snekke complete with safety equipment for the community to use.
NAAFI Fund has already distributed over £1.9million to the British Armed Forces units around the world. Making projects that improve the quality of life for serving personnel and serving families living on or near a Forces base or station.
NATO Community Norway and the NAAFI Fund
Being based in Norway is a wonderful experience. But with friends and family in the UK being so hard to get to – either a flight or a 1,500-mile drive and a ferry crossing away – they are sorely missed. This is before even factoring in the travel restrictions of the last two years and the additional aspects of Brexit. When so far away from home, your community plays a truly significant and important part of serving life overseas.
Boosting Benefits
The out-door lifestyle that is immediately associated with Norwegians comes with a pretty extreme backdrop, get fully insulated clothes-wise plus spikes on boots in winter, or brave some ‘fresh’ swimming conditions in summer. One of the glorious natural phenomena of the Norwegian landscape is the abundance of water, however, getting onto it can be a prohibitively expensive business, especially if you don’t want to practice your ‘Wim Hof’ mindset.
For families living in Norway, the chance to use a small vessel – or ‘snekke’ as it is known locally – to explore the surroundings as a group or a family gives a some really boosting benefits, relaxing a busy mind, learning boat-handling skills, wild-life spotting or enjoying a change of surroundings for a couple of hours.
One family noted; ‘It’s so restorative getting out on the water, because the Norwegian lifestyle is so different from the UK, things like going out for a Sunday roast is something that doesn’t exist, so being able to hire the snekke for an afternoon is an absolute tonic’.
The NAAFI Fund makes grants to UK Armed Forces bases, located in the UK or overseas, for projects that improve the quality of life for serving personnel and serving families living on or near a Forces base or station.
For more information on the NAAFI Fund, please go to the dedicated page.