'I love this country – that's why I'm speaking up about Sweden's diversity problems'
If Sweden wants to get serious about diversity and inclusion it must tackle some-deep-rooted problems head-on, argue Greg Fernando and Brandon Sekitto, the founders of the 1046 inclusion campaign.
Advertisement
In an interview for The Local's Sweden in Focus podcast, the pair explain that they started the initiative with the aim of ensuring that all of Sweden's more than ten million inhabitants felt included in the country regardless of their ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, age or disability.
Brandon Sekitto says it took him a while to figure out that Sweden wasn't as inclusive as it seemed to him growing up. His family moved to Sweden from Uganda when he was just nine years old and he ended up living in Tensta, one of Stockholm's most multicultural neighbourhoods.
'It was different races, people from all over the world. It was like a mosaic of diversity.'
Greg Fernando's introduction to the country was very different. Moving to Stockholm from Canada well into his adulthood and living in the affluent Kungsholmen area, he was often acutely aware of being the only person of colour within a given radius.
But even though they first saw Sweden through different lenses, they both want to make the country more welcoming and have reached similar conclusions on what needs to be done.
'I'm really proud to say that we recently won a Nordic inclusion prize, we presented at the Riksdag last year in November, and this year we're really excited because we're forming a partnership with Nordiska Museum,' says Fernando.
So far, 36 organisations have pledged a commitment to the initiative they founded.
READ ALSO: Should Sweden collect stats on ethnicity to combat racism?
While they're pleased with some of the projects they have under way, both men believe that if Swedes want diversity to be more than a buzzword people are going to need to engage in difficult conversations – and it won't be comfortable.
'Sweden has to understand that this uncomfortableness is necessary for us to be comfortable enough to make the changes we need. And it is not primarily the job of us as minorities or black people to do. It's the job of Swedes themselves to do,' says Sekitto.
"I love Sweden, so don't send me hate mail," he adds. "My kids love this country. I love this country. That's why I'm speaking up."
He and his co-founder are committed to facilitating these difficult conversations. As an intercultural communicator Sekittto specialises in bridging cultural differences, while Fernando founded the organisation New to Sweden as a way to help newcomers gain a foothold in a difficult job market.
According to Fernando, an unwillingness to fully embrace diversity stems from a form of nationalism tied to Sweden regularly coming topping lists of the best places in the world to live. As a result, he says, a consensus has emerged among many Swedes that newcomers should adapt to the superior Swedish way of life and leave their own cultures and traditions at the door.
'They have such a terrible time adapting to anything new. And I think that's a skill set that they have to pick up, because otherwise we're just going to be doing the same old dance for the next 100 years, where they just don't think people coming from abroad bring any value to them.'
READ ALSO: 'Sweden is decades behind on racism and diversity'
As for the campaign's name, Fernando jokes that naming it 1046 was not their most clear-sighted moment.
'We started this project so long ago and at that time there were 10.46 million people living in Sweden. So we came up with the bright idea of naming this initiative after the number of people who are living here, not thinking ahead.'
'We would love people to join up,' Sekitto says. "Everybody can do something. We've done what we can and we welcome everybody else to join the conversation.'
You can find out more about the 1046 campaign on their website and LinkedIn page.
Membership+ subscribers can listen to the interview with Greg Fernando and Brandon Sekitto in the latest episode of Sweden in Focus Extra, out May 21st.
Get Membership+ to listen to all The Local's podcasts
Sweden in Focus Extra is a podcast for The Local's Membership+ subscribers.
Sign up to Membership+ now and get early, ad-free access to a full-length episode of the Sweden in Focus podcast every weekend, as well as Sweden in Focus Extra every Wednesday.
Please visit the link that applies to you and get a 40% discount on Membership+
Read more about Membership+ in our help centre.
Already have Membership+ but not receiving all the episodes? Go to the podcast tab on your account page to activate your subscription on a podcast platform. If you prefer to listen on the site, you can find all episodes at the bottom of our podcast page.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Local Sweden
5 hours ago
- Local Sweden
Sweden's Constitution Committee criticises government for citizenship slowdown
KU, the Swedish parliament's constitution committee, has criticised the leaders of all three government parties for writing an article in a Swedish newspaper calling for a slowdown or stop in granting Swedish citizenship applications. Advertisement On November 29th, the three governing parties of Sweden's right-wing coalition and the Sweden Democrats published an opinion piece in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper titled 'It should be harder to become a Swedish citizen'. The parties pledged in the article to 'as much as possible, take measures to stop more Swedish citizenships from being granted until new rules are in place', hinting that they would take steps to get the Migration Agency to slow down the processing of citizenship applications. They did not explicitly say how they would do so, but the government did in January order the Migration Agency to make extra efforts to identify potential security threats in citizenship cases. These security checks, which came into force on April 1st, led to a near two-month freeze in citizenship applications this spring, and have slowed down the process of issuing new citizenships by forcing all applicants to attend in-person ID checks before their applications can be granted. READ ALSO: The Green Party reported the government to the Constitution Committee for ministerstyre or ministerial governance ‒ essentially, individual ministers trying to influence or meddle in the affairs of a public agency. Advertisement
Local Sweden
5 hours ago
- Local Sweden
Swedish PM 'not ruling out' state apology to international adoptees
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who chaired the agency managing adoptions to Sweden some 20 years ago, has said he's not ruling out an apology after an inquiry unveiled widespread abuses spanning several decades. Advertisement Kristersson told the TT news agency that he's not ruling out an official state apology to international adoptees, after the government-appointed inquiry sharply criticised previous state inaction on adoptions under questionable circumstances. The investigation, led by civil law professor Anna Singer, found evidence of child trafficking in about ten cases, mostly from the 1970s and 80s. In many more cases, parental consent was missing or poorly documented. It proposed banning all international adoptions. It was launched in 2021 after reports surfaced of children stolen from countries such as Chile, China, and South Korea. Kristersson himself has been caught up at the centre of scandal, as he served as chair of Adoptionscentrum, the organisation arranging international adoptions to Sweden, between 2003 and 2005. "The information there is now didn't exist at the time, it has emerged afterwards," he told TT. He said that he welcomed the inquiry commission's report. "It's incredibly important that this work has been done. There's a great number of proposals from the commission which we are now going to study very carefully," he said. "The government isn't ruling anything out."
Local Sweden
8 hours ago
- Local Sweden
Who would govern Sweden if an election were held today?
With just over a year to go until Sweden's next election, a key poll suggests that the centre-left Social Democrats may take a decisive leap forward. Advertisement If an election were held today, the Social Democrats would get 36.2 percent of the vote, according to number-crunching state agency Statistics Sweden's survey – a 5.9 point increase on the 2022 election. The ruling Moderates, on the other hand, would only get 18.3 percent, 0.8 percentage points down on the last election, although that decrease is not statistically significant. They would, on the other hand, by a tiny margin, claw back the spot as Sweden's second-largest party from the far-right Sweden Democrats, who would take the worst hit out of all the parties compared to the 2022 election, with a -2.5 point drop in support to 18 percent. 'The Swedish people are clear about wanting to see Magdalena Andersson as prime minister,' the Social Democrat's party secretary, Tobias Baudin, told the TT newswire. But he cautioned that the election, in September 2026, is still over a year off. 'This is a poll, but the decision will be made on election day. We're then going to lead the next government,' he said, saying the party wouldn't be resting on its laurels until then. The Sweden Democrats' deputy party secretary, Fredrik Lindahl, said voters would change their minds once his party's collaboration with the government starts to yield results. 'We think voters will see it and appreciate our alternative,' he told TT. Advertisement Out of the five smaller parties, the left side fared the best in the poll, with the Left Party claiming 7.1 percent of the vote and the Green Party 6.5 percent. The Centre Party – who is currently collaborating mainly with the centre-left – would get 5.5 percent. The two parties that also make up the right-wing government coalition, however, would not manage to get enough votes to make it across the four-percent parliamentary threshold. The Christian Democrats would get 3.4 percent and the Liberals 2.8 percent. This means that even if the Centre Party were to pull its reluctant support of the centre-left, or switch sides altogether, the left bloc would still win more seats than the right bloc. It's worth noting however that some of the smaller parties often poll below the parliamentary threshold in-between elections, but manage to secure enough votes on voting day. Statistics Sweden's party sympathy poll is only carried out once a year and is one of Sweden's biggest political public opinion polls. More than 9,000 voters were questioned between April 29th and May 28th.
