The third month in Sweden! I've said it before and I'll say it again, it feels like so much longer. When I meet people and they ask how long I've been here, I surprise myself by saying only 3 months. I am still one of the newer members when I attend AWC events. But after three months I can report a few more interesting tidbits about Swedish society.
When you come into a house or apartment in Sweden, you can always find the bathroom. It's always in the same predictable place: right by the front door. I don't know why this is, but when I go to my bi-weekly lunches with a group of international women affiliated with Lund University, I never have to ask where the "WC" is. Just find the front door, and it'll be the closest room.
On a more serious note, I'm learning a lot about the way that unpaid volunteering and interning is viewed here. It's not what you would expect.
When I decided to come here, I figured I could satisfy my inner-over-achiever with a volunteer position. I would at least be padding my resume and career experience by helping out at a women's shelter. Since I have arrived I have sent out cover letters and CV's to the shelters in Malmö that I have discovered. They were met with no reply. I called each to follow up, and left messages with the appropriate individuals. No response.
Unpaid positions here are almost non-existent for a number of reasons. First of all, the state provides for far more services than the American government does. For example, instead of some shelters being privately-funded (think Mary's Place in Minneapolis, or organizations like Habitat for Humanity, Amnesty International), the state provides all of those services. They have a near monopoly on social work. Because non-governmental organizations (like the ones I mentioned before) might have funding issues, in the US (and in Kenya from my experience) they thrive on volunteers, often people in situations like me. Now if it's a government-run organization, they probably don't need as many.
But on top of the social justice-related organizations being well-funded and able to afford employees, there's also some sort of stigma surrounding volunteers. I was told a story about an individual who was visiting a person in an old folks' home. Apparently the individual was taking the elderly person out to lunch or something similar, once a week. Community members were unhappy with what he was doing; I think the argument was that he could be taking away jobs. Whether I'm getting the particulars of the story correct or not, the message was clear: volunteers are taking work away that could be giving someone else a job.
All of these factors make volunteering uncommon, which is the reason I attribute to the lack of response I've had when I have offered myself up to help an organization for free. Perhaps the person receiving it thinks it's weird that I would want to do that.
Next month I hope to write on the broad and complicated topic of how the social system works here, i.e. how much taxes are paid and what people get in return!
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