Why
We want to pave the way for a more creative environment in a small town in Sweden, that shares it´s situation with many small towns in Sweden
We want to give accessibility to tools for taking control of one’s life situation, need to repair or build items for one’s home.
We see a need for activities for people waiting for a slow bureaucracy, a job or an education.
The asylumseekers are put on hold – they have no support in getting settled until they have their asylum tried by the authorities. The Swedish migrationsoffice places them in empty apparments, often outside the bigger cities, where there is space, but unfortunatly there is not very much to do while waitning.
The local volonteer associations are doing a very important service by providing Swedish lessons and introductions to how the Swedish society works, something the Swedish authorirties only offer the ones already passed granted asylum. With the volume of mostly syrian refugees at this time the processes were long.
Location
Norra Långgatan, Åmål, SverigeCharacteristics
Area
Åmål is a small town in Sweden where a large number of refugees have been assigned homes by the Swedish migration authorities, this town is now going through a change, from being a place where inhabitants left – it´s now a place where it´s hard to find an apartment and where new shops and small businesses are established. Both the immigrant’s situation in Åmål and the uprising xenophobia and racism in Sweden are issues that needs addressing, we believe that he creating of common experiences and activities is an important part of a better coexistence and our way has been by the making and creating through crafts and art.
Audience
The target group of this project was a differentiated crowd of people, different backgrounds, class and gender.
We wanted to include asylum seekers and newlyarrived refugees in the Åmål life, and put established Åmål habitants in touch with the newcomers.
How the audience/participants were reached or discovered
We partnered up with local associations working with education for asylumseekers in Åmål. Their situations are difficult in many ways. The asylumseekers are put on hold – they have no support in getting settled until they have their asylum tried by the authorities. The Swedish migrationsoffice places them in empty apparments, often outside the bigger cities, where there is space, but unfortunatly there is not very much to do while waitning.
The local volonteer associations are doing a very important service by providing Swedish lessons and introductions to how the Swedish society works, something the Swedish authorirties only offer the ones already passed granted asylum. With the volume of mostly syrian refugees at this time the processes were long.
How it was done
How
We are working with craft and making as a way of meeting across social and cultural borders. Using accesiblemethods of conceptualizing, planning and arranging events.
Results
Main lessons learned
Inspiration
I have been visiting the Ciclofficcina Popolare at Maniffatture KNOS in Lecce a couple of times, a place where people from all situations, backgrounds, countries get together and fix their bikes, have coffee and meet.
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=ciclofficina%20popolare%20knos%20di%20lecce
Activity Timeline
2016
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Finding a space
We found an empty garage behind the old courthouse, in the center of town and close to other public services, didn´t look like much to others but we saw endless opportunity in this little garage with a lawn an apple tree and some bushes.
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Planning
Crafters and Åmål habitants meet and plan the activities. We are using potatoprinting and experimenting with letters and words. A great activity to get the ideas going.
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What do we need
A good way to get busy is to answer to the immediate needs, starting with an empty space meens a lot of needs, for example a shelf for our kettle, the electric cord was not long enough to reac the floor.
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Building away!
We begun building what we needed for our aktivities, starting with a place to sit, with material from an old house, swedish red!
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Material, recycling
One neighbour was tearing down a shed, and asked if we wanted the wood for firewood. A good supply for making all sorts of objekts, furniture and stuff, and then burn the leftovers.
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Summer workshop week
We gave a one week workshop of bikereparing for found bikes..
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Promoting at the employment office in Åmål
We went to the employments office to inform about the activities for people waiting for job opportunities, it was a good place to participants in need of bikes.