The March 30 deadline is fast approaching for persons who want to join the American Latvian Association’s (ALA) educational trips this summer to the homeland.

The ALA is organizing a total of four tours through the youth-oriented “Heritage Latvia” and the family-oriented “Hello, Latvia,” said Program Coordinator Anita Juberts.

“Heritage Latvia” is an English-language educational tour that “has been popular with young people of Latvian descent who do not speak Latvian, but are interested in seeing the homeland of their Latvian grandparents,” Juberts said in an e-mail. This year’s tour is set July 6-19 and includes visits to the International Folk Festival Baltica, which will be held in Rīga, Jelgava and other locations in the Zemgale region.

Young persons must be 13-15 years old at the time of the trip. Cost is USD 3,000 and includes air fare from Chicago or Newark to Rīga. Also included in the cost are all meals, transfers, accommodations, tickets to museums, concerts and other attractions.

“The tour includes day-long visits with students at two Latvian schools, as well as the opportunity to spend a day with the students in Rīga,” Juberts said. “For many, this is one of the highlights of the trip to Latvia.”

“Hello Latvia” is a bi-lingual tour for adults and families. It also runs July 6-19 and will include visits to the Baltica festival.

The trip includes a full-time English-speaking guide, transfers and transportation in Latvia, accommodations in high quality and comfortable hotels and guest houses, all breakfasts and most other meals (with the exception of those during free afternoons and evenings) as well as attendance at a number of concerts, Juberts said.

The tour will visit the Rundāle Palace, an operetta performance in Tukums, the seashore of the Gulf of Rīga, the Baltic Sea port cities of Ventspils and Liepāja, Latgale region and Daugavpils, and the scenic banks of the Daugava River.

“We have planned a stay in a new four-star hotel recently opened in the Vecgulbenes manor,” Juberts said. “The trip back to Rīga features cultural and scenic highlights of Vidzeme, including Vecpiebalga, Cēsis, Rujiena, Valmiera and Sigulda.”

The “Hello Latvia” trip costs USD 3,300 per person and includes round-trip airfare from Chicago or Newark to Rīga.

Each tour has a maximum of 20 participants and participation is on a first-come, first-served basis. For further information, contact Juberts at the ALA, +1 (301) 340-8719 or projekti@alausa.org. Information also is available on the ALA’s Web site, www.alausa.org.

The ALA also organizes the Latvian-language “Sveika, Latvija!” summer tour aimed at children finishing the eighth grade in Latvian schools in the United States.

Latvia’s parliament has approved a new five-party coalition government to be led by new Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, who has promised to set the country’s economy back on course and restore the public’s trust in state institutions.

The Saeima on March 12 voted 67-21 to approve the Dombrovskis government.

The 37-year-old Dombrovskis replaces Ivars Godmanis as prime minister. The four-party coalition government led by Godmanis collapsed last month and he resigned Feb. 20.

Dombrovskis, a member of New Era (Jaunais laiks, or JL), is a former finance minister. Before being tapped to form the nation’s new government, Dombrovskis was serving as a member of the European Parliament.

Besides New Era, the new center-right government will include ministers supported by the People’s Party (Tautas partija, or TP), the Union of Greens and Farmers (Zaļo un zemnieku savienība, or ZZS), the Civil Union (Pilsoniskā savienība, or PS) and For Fatherland and Freedom / LNNK (Tēvzemei un Brīvībai / LNNK, or TB/LNNK). Shut out from the government is the First Party of Latvia (Latvijas Pirmā partija), whose members include Godmanis and the controversial former minister of transport, Ainārs Šlesers. The socialdemocratic Harmony Centre (Saskaņas centrs), which may have had hopes of being part of a center-left coalition government, also remains in the opposition, as does the pro-Moscow party For Human Rights in United Latvia (Par cilvēka tiesībām vienotā Latvijā).

The new Cabinet of Ministers includes:

• Agriculture Minister Jānis Dūklavs (nonpartisan, delegated by ZZS), chairman of the board of the Piebalgas alus beer company.
• Culture Minister Ints Dālderis (nonpartisan, delegated by TP), who is director of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra.
• Defense Minister Imants Lieģis (nonpartisan, delegated by PS), the British-born son of World War II exiles who most recently has served as ambassador to Spain. He also has been Latvia’s ambassador to the European Union’s Political and Security Committee and before that was ambassador to the NATO defense alliance.
• Economics Minister Artis Kampars (JL), vice chairman of his party’s caucus in the Saeima.
• Education and Science Minister Tatjana Koķe (ZZS), who continues in the post she had in the Godmanis goverment. She is one of two women in the new government.
• Environment Minister Raimonds Vējonis (ZZS), who has held the job since 2002.
• Finance Minister Einars Repše (JL), a former prime minister and former president of the Bank of Latvia.
• Foreign Minister Māris Riekstiņš (TP), who continues in the post he had in the Godmanis government.
• Health Minister Ivars Eglītis (TP), who continues in the post he had in the Godmanis government.
• Interior Minister Linda Mūrniece (JL), a member of the Saeima and a former minister of defense. She is one of two women in the new government.
• Justice Minister Mareks Segliņš (TP), who was interior minister under Godmanis.
• Regional Development and Local Government Affairs Minister Edgars Zalāns (TP), who continues in the post he had in the Godmanis government. Zalāns was a leading candidate to replace Godmanis as prime minister, but instead Dombrovskis got the nod from President Valdis Zatlers.
• Transport Minister Kaspars Gerhards (TB/LNNK), who was the economics minister under Godmanis.
• Welfare Minister Uldis Augulis (ZZS), who most recently was the ministry’s parliamentary secretary.

The new government is smaller by two ministries. Gone are the Ministry of Children, Family and Integration Affairs as well as the Secretariat of the Special Assignments Minister for Electronic Government Affairs.

The Ministry of Children, Family and Integration Affairs, led by Ainars Baštiks (LPP), had just recently absorbed the Secretariat of the Special Assignments Minister for Social Integration Affairs, which was shut down at the end of 2008. The integration ministry, among other responsibilities, oversaw Latvia’s support for diaspora communities. The Dombrovskis government, according to its declaration, will promote the repatriation of ethnic Latvians and the return of Latvian residents living abroad.

Enough Latvians live in southern Sweden that the time has come to get organized, so on March 7 a group is meeting in Malmö to establish the latest diaspora society.

About 65 Latvians received e-mail recently from Mārtiņš Kālis, a doctoral student at Lund University, inviting them to a meeting at 17:00 hours in S:t Mikaels kyrka in Malmö. During the meeting, he said via e-mail, he expects the society’s board of directors will be elected and members will discuss the society’s focus.

“From my view the society must be a center or catalyst that promotes the realization of ideas, brings Latvians together, advances contacts among Latvians, and creates interest in joining and recognizing yourself as a representative of the local Latvian community,” Kālis said.

One of the main activities of the society could be a Latvian school, he said. Children have to get accustomed to the idea that they can communicate in the Latvian language with other children, and that many adults communicate in Latvian, too.

“Otherwise we will arrive at the same situation as many exile Latvian familes, whose children have never had an interest in speaking the Latvian language,” Kālis said.

The new society will not be the first Latvian organization in southern Sweden. A Latvian Lutheran Church operates in Lund and Kālis is a member of the Sweden-Denmark Latvian Choir.

The proximity to Denmark—just 35 minutes by train from Malmö to Copenhagen—has resulted in special ties.

“The Latvians here regard the Copenhagen embassy, not the embassy in Stockholm, as theirs, because it is incomparably closer,” Kālis said.

Tracking down contact details for Latvians in southern Sweden was not easy. Kālis concentrated just on Skåne county, searching the social networking portal draugiem.lv for Latvians in southern Sweden. He also got some contact information from the church in Lund. Many of the names he found were for Latvians who have moved to Sweden since the 1990s.

More than 3,300 persons born in Latvia were residents of Sweden as of 2008, according to Statistics Sweden. The Latvian community has been centered around Stockholm, which among other organizations has a school, a choir and a church, plus is home for the Latvian National Foundation and the Latvian Central Council of Sweden.