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Sweden

Our programme in Sweden 

Sweden is where Life & Peace Institute was founded in the 1980s, and while LPI always had a solid base here, the focus of our work has been elsewhere. 

However, in recent years Sweden – and Europe more broadly – has seen continuing shifts in political and public discourse towards a decrease in tolerance and openness. Sweden has also seen an increase in already existing challenges relating to issues such as segregation and rising income inequality. This has highlighted existing disparities between groups and has served to shed light on the need for inclusive transformative approaches to foster greater community cohesion. 

In response to these observations and building on LPI’s long-standing history of working with transformative approaches of peacebuilding, LPI launched its Sweden Engagement Programme in 2018. LPI’s Sweden Engagement programme focuses on the three strategic priorities of civil society support and inclusive engagement for peace, policy engagement and awareness-raising and knowledge and Learning to enhance practice.

One strand of work focuses on applying the skills and knowledge gained by working towards peaceful societies in the Horn of Africa to the Swedish context and its challenges, in order to contribute to a Sweden that is peaceful, just and inclusive.  Another strand of work focuses on linking with and lifting knowledge and policy from its other programmes within Sweden.

Map Sweden
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Leadership meeting in Uppsala

Partners are key to our success 

Partnership is key to LPI’s success and is also integral to LPI’s engagement in Sweden. We are building networks with people who are already on the ground working on these issues. 

In its Peacefinders project, LPI has worked closely with student associations at various universities in Sweden, in four different locations: Uppsala, Stockholm, Jönköping and Malmö. The student associations are key collaborators in engaging youth at university campuses. 

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Let’s Engage the Global Goals project in Sweden in collaboration with Students for Sustainable Action from Jönköping University.
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Let’s Engage the Global Goals project in Sweden.

LPI is collaborating with a broad range of civil society organisations and other actors for the purpose of policy engagement, knowledge enhancement and grassroots community engagement. Networks such as Concord Sweden, Sweden Mission Council, European Peace Liaison Office (EPLO) and various issue- or context based networks in Sweden are important means of engagement for outreach and collaboration. 


Our work

Peacefinders: Youth Leading for the Global Goals As a response to the observations of growing challenges within Sweden, LPI launched a pilot project in 2018 aimed at engaging young people in Sweden to contribute to a more peaceful, just and inclusive Sweden through the Global Goals. This project sought to increase the knowledge of this global framework among youth in Sweden to ensure their effective participation in its implementation. The project was reimagined with youth participation and re-launched for the period of 2019-2020 as Peacefinders, with the aim of providing a platform for young people to drive transformative action towards peace and inclusion in Sweden and elsewhere, thereby bridging theory and action. 

Beyond its focus on offering a platform for youth action towards the Global Goals, the Peacefinders project is also seeking to expand the current understanding of what defines a peaceful society through conducting research on the aspects of positive peace in Sweden. Parallel to this LPI is also working with policy engagement in the Swedish context. 

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Workshop in Sweden with staff from the Kenya programme sharing their experience.

Approach and methods  

In its Sweden Engagement Programme LPI is adapting approaches we have for a long time worked with in our other contexts such as Sustained Dialogue but are also testing new approaches such as working with social labs, and new forms of policy engagement.

Read more about our approach & methods


Our donors   

Current funders include the Swedish Mission Council (SMC)


Resources 


External links  

Related articles & resources
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Sweden - Uppsala

LPI’s Sweden Office is located in Uppsala

Postal Address
Life & Peace Institute, Kungsängsgatan 17, 1st floor, SE-753 22, Uppsala, Sweden

Visiting Address
Life & Peace Institute, Kungsängsgatan 17, 1st floor, SE-753 22, Uppsala, Sweden

Phone +46 (0)18-66 01 30 or +46 (0)18-66 01 31, +46 (0)18-66 01 32

Email info@life-peace.org