Kajsa Övergaard embodies Right Livelihood’s living memory. Having spent more than 16 years at the organisation and having personally met about 130 Right Livelihood Laureates, she knows the institutional history of Right Livelihood better than anyone. If you don’t know or remember something, just ask Kajsa. Even if she doesn’t have the answer, she will at least know who does.
Regardless of her position – and she has held a few at the organisation – there was a task she always did with passion: keeping Right Livelihood’s relationships with Laureates active. A “connector” is how she calls the role she has played by introducing Laureates to each other.
As she prepares to retire from her job at Right Livelihood, Kajsa continues to do the same: connecting the past to the present, previous Laureates to current staff, old documents with new databases, and paper collections with digital archives.
The last time we interviewed Kajsa, we talked about Right Livelihood’s traineeship programme and the fresh takes our younger colleagues have brought to our established routines. This time, we focus on the wisdom she has collected along the way and how she’s sharing those experiences with the next generation.
Right Livelihood: How did you and Right Livelihood cross paths?
Kajsa Övergaard: When I was between 18 and 20, I realised how messed up things were in the world. I was distraught and curious. One day, I found a book in my dad’s office: “What now? Towards Another Development”. I took it up, started to read and felt, “Here people are thinking the way I am!” linking human rights with environmental problems and consumption habits. So I asked my dad: “Where did you get this from?” I thought it was from somewhere far away. And he said, “I got it from a man that works at an institute just downtown, here in Uppsala,” where we lived. I threw myself on the phone, called them and received an invitation to visit. That’s how I learned about the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and its director, Sven Hamrell, who was a Right Livelihood jury member for over 20 years. I got my first job there and learned about Vandana Shiva, Pat Mooney and all these fantastic people. I attended my first Right Livelihood Award Presentation in 1984, in which Wangari Maathai received the prize!
RL: It’s been 40 years now since that Award Presentation!
KO: Yes! And many jobs in the meantime. I didn’t start working for Right Livelihood until 2008. But before that, I bumped into Laureates in my different jobs. Then, when I worked at Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation for a second time, I also met with Ole [von Uexkull, Right Livelihood’s Executive Director] and did joint events with Right Livelihood. We brought the new Laureates to the Uppsala Castle. Soon after, I learned about an open position at Right Livelihood.
RL: They were hiring! What were they looking for at the time?
KO: Oh, I never remember the titles; I remember what I do. At that time, Ole was already the Executive Director. It was only him and a trainee. I was the second staff member. The trainee was the one who taught me and had the time and knowledge I needed from the very start. And because we were only two people, there was quite a wide variety of tasks to do, everything from arranging and being responsible for the Award Presentation and the programme for new Laureates to being responsible for invoices, ensuring our bookkeepers (outside the organisation) had what they needed and did what they were supposed to do. During my first years, I was also involved in the Board and Jury meetings and had a lot of contact with our communications consultant in Germany. It was all so small.
RL: How did you experience the growth of Right Livelihood? How was it for you to change roles and let others take some of your previous responsibilities?
KO: At the beginning, it was pretty slow. Steffi (Geilhof) was the next person to come in, first as a trainee, not long after me. So, I got to focus more and more on previous Laureates, to be more in contact with them and work for the first part of the year rather than only planning for the Award Presentation and the Award Week. In 2010, we had our biggest meeting in Bonn, where every Laureate was invited to celebrate Right Livelihood’s 30th anniversary. Later, over five years, we organised a series of regional meetings for Laureates in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe, and the last one in North America, in 2018. So it was a slow process, from doing many different things and being involved in almost everything to concentrating mainly on existing Laureates.
RL: You were not only holding a pre-defined position but also redefined it, showing how important it is to keep connected!
KO: Yeah, I think the theme of what I’ve been doing is to connect people. To learn about who’s doing what, think about who they have already met and if they could be helpful to each other. Maybe that is what I’m good at. It is exciting when people are connected, can collaborate, and use each other well. I am really happy every time it happens. So my title, I guess, should be “Connector” or something similar instead of anything else.
RL: The less interesting part, although crucial for everyone else at Right Livelihood, is to document it all and make the information and the stories of these relationships available for others in future. How do you handle it?
KO: True, that’s not very exciting. We have a database that, like any database, is only useful if you use it. This is where we have tried to put down the communications we have with Laureates. So that other staff members – now that we have a bigger team – can log in and see when the last contact was or who was in contact last time with that Laureate.
RL: Why have you decided to work so long for Right Livelihood?
KO: I hadn’t decided, but I had an opportunity to think about it around 2012. I was sick for a while, so I had time out and time to think. I wondered, “Is this really what I want to continue doing? This means a lot of stress, a lot of work…”. I usually think on paper while drawing and writing. And I just felt, “Yes, I want to continue this. This is what I want to do.” That felt good. I hadn’t chosen the wrong thing to do. If you’re a person who is anxious and worried about what we’re doing to this world and can be surrounded by all these amazing people who are doing good stuff around the globe, then this is unique. It is.
RL: How is it to be leaving now?
KO: It feels good that I made the decision. It feels strange, also. A really big change in my life, but it’s good to realise that there are different times in your life, other periods. I don’t think about it as a retirement. But of course, I do want to spend more time with my family now that I am a grandma. I will miss many things, but more than things, I will miss people. But other than that, I want to bring issues together and take “right livelihood” to the local level.
RL: Is there anything you now realise you want to have done before leaving?
KO: I’m reviewing the Award’s history and making sure that we mark things in the archives so that anyone can find material when necessary. One of the first things I met with were speeches by Jakob [von Uexkull, Right Livelihood’s founder and first chair] from 1980 until 2016. Every year, at the Award Presentation, he held quite a long discourse about the state of the world and about why Right Livelihood. It’s amazing! I’ve put them all together, and it’s awesome to see that there’s not so much repetition. I’m thinking a lot about how to make good use of this. Maybe a book? Talking about remembering people, I would like to mention Jakob von Uexkull, who is no longer active but who started the whole thing. What an amazing work he did!
RL: How is Right Livelihood connected to what you are doing next?
KO: I feel that “right livelihood” is all about transitioning and changing the whole system of how we do things. And there’s also a lot of things we need to do here where I live. Things are bubbling here and there, and more people are trying to get organised. Movements pop up, small actors, but they don’t see each other. They all feel that they are working and working while nobody else thinks like they do. So, again, I think my role here is to try to connect these people. So I’ve already started!
