Alex Schulman: Never seen a municipal person so disappointed

Each year, Filipstad selects an ambassador to represent the municipality. This year, the choice fell on author Alex Schulman.

- For me it is real and I would love to hit the town and talk about it when I can, he says when the Assignment Review meets him in connection with the celebration of the National Day in Filipstad.

As a child, he spent countless summers with his grandparents, author Sven Stolpe, and his wife Karin.

- My grandmother and grandfather lived on Allégatan up here and I was here often. It's almost like part of my DNA in a way.

But much has changed since then. In 2015, Filipstad was one of the municipalities that received the most refugees in relation to its population - today the municipality has the highest proportion of grants in the entire country. Unemployment among the foreign-born is high and this year the municipality is forced to save SEK 30 million.

The municipalities' latest financial report describes the situation:

“In Filipstad, around 750 adults live in Syria, Somalia, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Iraq. [...] In this group, unemployment and dependency are very high, while education levels are very low. This group runs the risk of ending in an eternal alienation that is already heavily burdening the municipal economy. "

The desperate situation in Filipstad is clear to the municipality's ambassador, Alex Schulman.

- I talked to a municipal pump and I have never been involved in it before a municipal person is so down. It was a task I was surprised by, he says.

Today, the house where he spent his childhood summers has become a mosque. When he returned to the city for the first time in several years this summer, he was there first.

- I knocked on the door and it was empty, and then I went in because it was open. The whole grandfather's library where he had his 15,000 books was prayer room with rugs. Finally, there came a person who showed me around a little. It was one of the strongest things I have been to, to see that all this stuff I grew up in now was turned into a mosque. It was very nice.