Monday 24 September 2018

The Mothers of Rinkeby: Last Night in Sweden | This is Europe



It's 7pm and Ardo is getting ready for her shift. She puts on her orange jacket and makes her way through Rinkeby town centre, passing under its famous Rinkeby Centrum arch.
It's bustling on a Friday evening with elderly men sitting on benches, chatting and watching passersby, young people making their way to and from the nearby gym and families heading out to eat in the Pakistani restaurant or pizzeria.
In this neighbourhood where many of the residents are first, second or third generation migrants, she passes people from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Chile, Syria, Turkey and the country where she was born, Somalia.
A nursery teacher during the day, Ardo is a well-known face around here and her orange jacket a familiar sight.
She is one of the neighbourhood's night patrol mothers, a group of Somali mothers and grandmothers who, following the deaths of several boys in gang-related violence in the area, decided to act.
Every Friday and Saturday night, they put on their orange jackets and walk through the community in groups of two or three.

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