LearnSweden Blog

Almedalen Week

Known as the rock concert of politics, Almedalen Week is an annual event taking place in the first week of July in and around Almedalen, a park in the city of Visby on the Swedish island Gotland. With speeches, seminars and other political activities, it is considered an important forum in Swedish politics.

 

During the week, representatives from the major political parties in Sweden take turns to hold speeches in Almedalen.

  
 
 

The origins of the Almedalen Week are the speeches held by Olof Palme every summer in Visby, beginning in 1968. The first official Almedalen Week took place in 1982, when the Social Democrats started to organise economic seminars. As a response, the other political parties started to take a more active part. In recent years, the event has grown larger, with hordes of journalists (350 2008), lobbyists, local and national politicians and representatives of non-governmental organizations, all coming to Visby to meet, discuss politics and socialize.

After everything is said and done, there are a few reminders left behind.

 
 
   

The Fun Theory

What if you could change people's behavior by doing something fun? There was an article in the New York Times this week that stated, "When we have fun, we find more creative solutions to our problems and create better long lasting alternatives to the issues we're working on. Does that apply to taking the stairs? Would you take the stairs as opposed to the esacalator? Here's a look at how a fun moment in Stockholm had people making notes of a fun solution.

Save Tammisaari maternity Hospital

 

 

Greetings Everyone! This is a blogpost from my blogging friend Michele over at a house called nut. As many of you know there is a large Swedish speaking population in Finland. Their maternity hospital is in jeopardy of being shut down.  Below is Michele's request. If you feel this is important to you,please sign the petition. It's in swedish and finnish but you can use google translate to find the language you need to read it in. Thanks for taking the little bit of time to read this and take action.

Many Thanks, Valarie

Dear friends,

Are you interested in natural childbirth? If so, read on, join the email campaign to save Tammisaari Maternity Hospital, and forward this information to your friends and networks. Feel free to copy and paste any of the information below to your blog, emails, etc.

If not, please excuse this break from our regular programming and do come again next week!

Warm weekend wishes to you all!

Many thanks,

Michele

Save Tammisaari

On 12 October the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa  (HUS) Board of Directors will meet to determine the future of the Tammisaari Maternity Hospital, a certified World Health Organization/UNICEF baby-friendly hospital. The closure has been promoted in an effort to shut down smaller maternity wards and centralize obstetric care in few large hospitals.

Tammisaari is the only maternity hospital in Finland specializing in natural birth that is open to all women, regardless of municipal residence. Tammisaari is also unique because it boasts one of the few remaining maternity wards in Finland with full Swedish-language support. With approximately half of the population surrounding Tammisaari identifying Swedish as their mother tongue, the hospital is an invaluable resource in the region.

Continue reading "Save Tammisaari Maternity Hospital" »

 

Dear friends,

Are you interested in natural childbirth? If so, read on, join the email campaign to save Tammisaari Maternity Hospital, and forward this information to your friends and networks. Feel free to copy and paste any of the information below to your blog, emails, etc.

If not, please excuse this break from our regular programming and do come again next week!

Warm weekend wishes to you all!

Many thanks,

Michele

Save Tammisaari

On 12 October the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa  (HUS) Board of Directors will meet to determine the future of the Tammisaari Maternity Hospital, a certified World Health Organization/UNICEF baby-friendly hospital. The closure has been promoted in an effort to shut down smaller maternity wards and centralize obstetric care in few large hospitals.

Tammisaari is the only maternity hospital in Finland specializing in natural birth that is open to all women, regardless of municipal residence. Tammisaari is also unique because it boasts one of the few remaining maternity wards in Finland with full Swedish-language support. With approximately half of the population surrounding Tammisaari identifying Swedish as their mother tongue, the hospital is an invaluable resource in the region.

Almedalen

Every year, during one week in July,Visby holds a political week in the Almedalen.

Almedalen is a park in Visby, very beautiful, with flowers, trees and a pond. In the parc and all around the town, there is a lot of activity going on. Each political party has one day of their own. The day ends with speches and activites from the big stage in the parc. It is a tradition that it is each party´s leader that is holding the speech.

 

But there is one thing that everyone says is more important and that is to be there. You have to be there if you are a politican or if you have a message that you want to have on the Swedish agenda.

So there you will find, the red cross, the Swedish church, the automobile club, Save the animals, save the Baltic sea and so on.

Sweden EU Elections

   by Per Svangren

 

Sunday the 7th of June, Sweden went voting, for which of the eighteen politicians will represent Sweden in The European Union. All the traditional parties are able to vote for and some other groups as well.The results will come later this week, but already today Monday, we will know more or less the results.

  
There has been a lot of campaigning activities during the last few weeks and Saturday was the most active day of all. Then you could meet most of the politicans in town. They were serving meatballs, signing bath balls, playing football or just talking and telling one why, we should vote for them.

    

      

     

    
 
We went to vote at mid day and there were not so many people there. We put our vote in an envelope and then went home again.
                         
The EU (European Union) Parlament has 736 members, from 27 countries in Europe. The numbers of members from each country depends on the number of citizens in each country. The parliment is placed in both Brussels (Belgium) and in Strasbourg (France).

Yes We Can.......and oh Yes We Did!

Yesterday was a day and an evening filled with firsts.

• It was the first presidential election my eldest daugther voted in.
• It was the first time I felt nervous about an election.
• It was the first time in my life that I saw the American people take to the streets....in joy.

…..just some thoughts to share after a wonderfully triumphant night.  I have high hopes that this election is the start of a positive and exciting process in getting our country back on track to be a healthier, fairer, more peaceful and safer place to live.  We can bask in the victory knowing that we exercised our inalienable right to vote, that many of us did our part in helping with the campaign and that we shared our thoughts with each other.  The legacy we leave “our” children is promising and will be far better than it has been - for that we can be proud.  This election has affected me in ways that I didn’t realize it would and I look forward to what the next four years will bring. 

 

Following are some of the events of last night starting with the acceptance speech of President-elect Obama.

                        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olm9h0UnCpw

                        

It was a gorgeous fall day and hope was in the air......................

                          

                      

                    

                     Friends and family gathered and waited..............

                      

                     Gillian kept track of the poll closings throughout the U.S.

                       

    Ethan ate Obama pie while he waited.....we all did !! Thanks Aunt Ruth.

                      

 We waited for over an hour with nothing changing in the standings. It was "too close to call" in major battle states. Then the most incredible thing happened. The T.V. announcer said,"The west coast polls are closing in 10 seconds". The very next thing he said was "California is declaring that Obama has taken the state of California." The very next vision we had on T.V. was of Grant Park in Chicago with these words " President Elect Obama"

                 

                  

                  

                  

                  

                                             YES WE CAN!

What's Your Virtual Water Footprint ?

Water. The most important ingredient for survival. Have you ever thought of what you would do if you didn't have water ?

                                                          

This important question was asked of us last summer as we endured one of the hardest droughts ever to hit the south east United States. My little town of Maryville,Tennessee actually ran out of water and the city had to run emergency pipes from Loudon lake to our little hamlet. We couldn't water our gardens, we couldn't take daily showers, we had to consider electricity usages. As the water crisis continued throughout the fall, even the state of Georgia wanted to change the boundaries of the state line just to get water from a Tennessee river, it became apparent that we needed a different water strategy.

What does all of this have to do with Sweden? Sweden, as always is trailblazing a global road with it's World Water Week. The winner of this year's Stockholm Water Prize Laureate is Professor John Anthony Allen from King's College London. He is the creator of virtual water.

                                                

                                                                                                   

People do not only consume water when they drink it or take a shower. There is a water footprint which measures not only how much water we use but how much water it takes to make the products we buy and use.

"Behind that morning cup of coffee are 140 litres of water used to grow, produce, package and ship the beans." said Tony Allen. That is the average amount used by one person in England on a daily basis. A hamburger needs 2,400 litres of water. Professor Allen is suggesting that having more vegetarian habits has less impact than being a meat eater. One ton of beef takes a lot more water than a ton of wheat. Professor Allen does know that it is a difficult thing to change ones eating habits but is putting this one out there to think about.

So the next time you grab for the simplest item think about how much virtual water was used to produce it. Maybe one way to lessen our impact on water is to buy things locally and closer to home.Do I dare say,"Well that's food for thought".

Until next time. Vi hörs!

                                      

Trashed........Untrashed ( Happy Earth Day )

More than 40 renewable energy, product waste , and strategy companies from Sweden and the US met at the Swedish -American Chamber of Commerce e-days in San Diego to discuss waste-to-energy ideas. Sweden has been instrumental in developing successful technology in using most of its waste towards energy.  California currently has 50% of its waste it doesn't recycle.  Sweden's companies have a great deal to offer and California has embraced them whole heartedly.

The SACC conference gave a great opportunity for Swedish and American Companies to develop and expand their partnership in creating a more energy efficient planet.

Our Swedish American representative Valarie Budayr is celebrating Earth Day at Mount Trashmore. UT Recycles is making a mountain of trash to host a visual representation of the actual amount of waste generated on camp. Each day UT generates 46,640 pounds of wate. On average 60-0% of this material can be recycled.

These are just a few ideas of how we can lessen our impact on the planet. Let us know what you are doing for Earth Day.