The Pioneer the Possible exhibition was inaugurated during the Team Sweden business summit “French-Swedish Business Day” on decarbonization of the economy in Paris on December 6 2021.

The ambitious summit gathered French and Swedish business leaders, startups and decision makers in panel discussions on topics like “The economic value chain and circular economy”, “Mobility of the Future” and “Digitalisation and 5G as a platform for the green transition”.

The exhibition was inaugurated by HRH The Crown Princess Victoria, State Secretary to Minister for Foreign Trade and Nordic Affairs Krister Nilsson, director general of the Swedish Institute Madeleine Sjöstedt and CEO of Business Sweden Jan Larsson.

Instead of cutting a ribbon HRH The Crown Princess Victoria opened the exhibition by tying together a Swedish colored and a French colored ribbon as a symbol of the strong friendship between the two countries.

 

Photo: Embassy of Sweden Paris

Following the successful collaboration between Kenya (the Green Teams Initiative Nairobi) and Sweden (Swedish Institute and Swedish Incubator) to run a 7 days’ challenge of sustainable living, Alumni Swedia with the support of Embassy of Sweden in Jakarta exercised the same challenge in Indonesia in May 2017.
The challenge sought to combine technology and innovative drive in encouraging the development of sustainable urban lifestyles that improved the participants’ quality of life.

See the film or read the project report to learn more.

 

Focusing on human rights, a total of 1,000 high-school students have already been working with the unique cube project toolkit. Based on the Swedish national cube project, and developed in close co-operation with Raoul Wallenberg Academy, the toolkit was first introduced in 2016 and has been realized in a number of countries since.  Here are some of their stories.

The Cube Project in Budapest

The Cube Project in New York

The Cube Project in Paris (in French)

The Cube Project in Madrid (in Spanish)

The Cube Project in Serbia

The local partners in Serbia were the Swedish Embassy in Belgrade together with the organisation C31 in the cities of Belgrade and Kragujevac. The chosen articles were Article 19: The right to freedom of expression and Article 14: The right to asylum.

The Cube Project in Hungary

The local partners in Hungary were the Embassy of Sweden in Budapest together with the Kölcsey Ferenc high school and the József Attila high school. The chosen articles were Article 14: The right to asylum and Article 2: The right to freedom from discrimination.

The Cube Project in the Czech Republic

The local partners in the Czech Republic were the Embassy of Sweden in Prague together with the Lesní ctvrt high school in Zlín. The chosen articles were Articles 3: The right to freedom from discrimination, Article 7: The right to equality before the law, Article 8: The right to remedy by a competent Tribunal, Article19: The right to freedom of expression, Article 28: The right to a social order and Article 29: The right to community duties.

 

In February 2017 a pilot event for Retoy was hosted by the Embassy of Sweden in Skopje, Macedonia.

The project was a cooperation between the SI, the Embassy and local partners OXO and Save the Children.

Many connecting activities were arranged as part of the event:

  • Retoy toy swap event on a local pre-school
  • Dialogue meeting with the Macedonian Ministry of Labour and Social Policy
  • Heart-give toy activities for refugee children at the Gevgelija Transit Center together with Save the  Children
  • A seminar and workshop on children’s rights, CSR and sustainability
  • Meetings with Swedish companies in Macedonia about long term commitment for Retoy activities in Macedonia

The project attracted a lot of media attention with Retoy founder Soledad Piñero Misa being interviewed for two TV morning show, and attracted 40 participants to the seminar and around 70 children who took part in the toy swap activities.

Photos by: Ana Jakinska

On 16 May 2017 the three part exhibition Stories of Migration – then and now was inaugurated at the Occupation Museum in Tallinn, Estonia. The exhibition was a cooperation between the Embassy of Sweden in Tallinn, the Swedish Institute, International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Museum of Occupations and featured three different exhibitions on the theme of migration:

  1. Photo exhibition Portraits of Migration by Alexander Mahmoud for the Swedish Institute.
  2.  Photo and text exhibition I am a migrant by IOM telling the stories of refugees coming to Estonia.
  3. Photo- and documentary film exhibition In the Trails Of the Boat Refugees by the Baltic Art Center showing historical photos of Baltic refugees  on the island of Gotland in the 1940s by the Swedish photographer David Holmert. The connecting documentary portraits twelve youths from the Baltic Sea region reliving the faith of some of these refugees.

The exhibition attracted a lot of media attention, and during the inauguration a panel discussion on migration were held with Swedish ambassador Anders Ljunggren and photographer Alexander Mahmoud among the participants.

The possibility to cooperate with other exhibitions and project on the same theme was a good way to attract partners and audience to the event.

Photos by Mona Loose/SI

The very first 7 Day Challenge took place in Nairobi, Kenya as a part of the project Smart Living Challenge hosted by the Swedish Institute, the Embassy of Sweden to Kenya and the Kenyan organisation Green Teams Initiative. The 7 Day Challenge is a call to action inviting committed individuals around the world to practise sustainable urban lifestyles that will potentially improve their quality of life.

The project invited both Kenyan and Swedish participants to the challenge of living sustainable for one week.

See the film about 7 Day Challenge in Nairobi 2016 on Vimeo or on Youtube
Read about 7 Day Challenge in People Daily, Nairobi 3 February 2017

The exhibition AccessAbility about human rights and disabilities has been shown in many countries since its launch in 2014. Local stories can be added and many foreing missions have created exhibition catalogues with their local stories. Here are some of them:

Georgia

Lithuania

Turkey

Latvia

Nigeria

Russia

Brazil