This report is the fourth report out of five within a Nordic project about the living conditions of persons with disability and of Sami descent, the indigenous people in Scandinavia, compared with the general population. It is an important contribution to increased knowledge about the prerequisities for good living conditions for people with disabilities and their enviroment in the Sami regions in Finland.

There is a lack of knowledge about living conditions for people of Sami background with disabilities. Furthermore there is also very little knowledge about conditions for social inclusion for this group across the whole of the Sápmi geographical area. This was acknowledged by The Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs (Bufdir). For this reason the Nordic Welfare Centre was enlisted by Bufdir to coordinate a Nordic project on the situation of people of Sami background with disabilities. 

The Nordic project is going on from 2014 through 2017. A central part of the project for The Nordic Welfare Centre is to coordinate five different national studies (two from Norway, two from Sweden and this report from Finland). An important element of the work is to make sure the studies are rooted in the Sami environment and that the results are usable in the context of Sami communities. The aim of the project is to map out this sector's living conditions within areas such as work, education, accommodation, social and health services in the individual countries as well as in the entire region. 

Results from the Nordic project are intended to contribute to create good conditions to encourage political decisions concerning the group's rights and public services, amongst other things. The project will present information on how the countries live up to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and how this work can be followed up in the future. 

The Nordic Welfare Centre is an institution under the Nordic Council of Ministers. Our mission is to enhance social policy work in the Nordic countries through education, communication, research and development, networking and international co-operation.