by Mandy Moussouris 23 june 2022

In partnership with OPIC and ABF - from the 30th of May to the 10th of June, EMG’s Nick Hamer, Mandy Moussouris and December Ndhlovu were in Sweden as part of a solidarity exchange with our Swedish partners ABF. The EMG/ABF partnership is part of our project funded by the Olaf Palme Center.

It was a busy two weeks, the first week spent in Stockholm where we participated in the Stockhol+50 Peoples Forum, The UN Stockholm+50 Conference and where December was a panellist in a seminar on Environmental defenders and the struggle for the right to a healthy environment at the Peoples’ Perspective side event, watch here: Program Stockholm+50: Forum Civ

The second week was spent in the South of Sweden in Skone visiting the different projects that ABF are supporting in that region.

On the 7th of June EMG gave an input on the South African context, what Just Transition means in the South, our work in Mpumalanga and the process of creating a community hub along the Kuils River. We visited projects in Röstånga a rural village that had been dying as a result of urbanization Through the collective work of community members who formed Röstånga Tillsammans we learned how the village has been revived through a community company that invests in property development and through collaboration with other NGO’s like and IBiB.

The community investment company focuses on reviving abandoned properties and using these to support local businesses and provide housing. An example of how the project and collaboration have revived the village is evident in school attendance figures which improved from 10 children to 900 in about a decade.

The village of Röstånga

The next day we visited Backaly and meet with Albin Ponnert a farmer who we have been working with to test the viability of a farmer-driven marketing website/APP for small-scale farmers in South Africa called Local Food Nodes, we learned about the context that it was developed in and share experiences from working with Community Supported Agriculture. We also met Albin’s dog Eda and his cat Pia.

From there we traveled to Veberöd and visit Mossagården where we met Ebba-Maria Olson, a farmer at Mossagården who spoke to us about local food production and their integrative model for sustainable farming with a music festival, a bed and breakfast venue, a restaurant, and hemp farming.

Our last day in Sweden was spent in the Urban context where we visited the Malmö Tillsammans project and met Tom Roodro who shared their work using the local economy as a tool for sustainable development and part of a just transition in the urban context. We had lunch at Yalla Trappan a restaurant project in a poorer suburb of Malmö that has created employment for over 20 women and spent the afternoon enjoying Swedish fika (afternoon but with coffee) with SAFRAN at Ingrid’s and Bosse’s place.

We thank ABF and OPIC for their partnership on this solidarity trip.