Skultuna spirit

Skultuna spirit is owned and operated by Västerås City and is a solid collaboration between the municipality, the municipal housing company Mimer, the association life, and the local youth.

It all started with a survey about the lives and health of young people in Skultuna, which showed that young people in Skultuna had a devastatingly low belief in the future. The Skultuna district committee therefore decided to develop a strategy for how to strengthen the young people's belief in the future. In the autumn of 2020, work began to investigate all conceivable factors that had an impact on the local youth's lives and health. Early in 2021, an association council was then created in Skultuna, serving as a bridge between the municipality and the association life.

The early preliminary investigation showed that young people in Skultuna experienced distrust and suspicion from the area's older residents, which in turn gave the young people a feeling of being a burden rather than a resource. This was something the association council wanted to change, as young people are the entire future of Skultuna! They wanted more young people to meet safe adults in the local community and convey the feeling of a shared responsibility for the children in Skultuna. It was there and then that the idea of a ”Skultuna spirit” was born, which became the name of the leader project.

The goal of the project is to produce a document that shows the way for how to work for and with their youth in the future, to strengthen their belief in the future in the long term. Since the project consists of developing a working method, it was not certain at the time of application exactly which activities would be carried out. What was known was that activities in the form of workshops, among other things, would be conducted and that they would be open to all interested.

So far, the project has carried out one activity: The campaign Hello Skultuna. It aimed to get more people in Skultuna to greet each other. The idea was that something as small as saying hello to passersby in the village could be a first step to strengthen safety and cohesion in Skultuna. Greeting each other makes one feel seen and acknowledged by a fellow human being, and something that can open doors for further conversations. The unique campaign sparked national interest and was featured in a segment on SVT's program ”After five,” which you can find further down the page.