OMEP Sweden welcome note
As the national president of OMEP Sweden, I’m honoured to welcome you all to Sweden, the city of Kristianstad, and to the OMEP European conference on Sustainability from the Start. Welcome also honourable delegates of the European national committees to the European OMEP assembly.
I look forward to fun, fruitful, and thought-provoking days together. We will explore themes like sustainability, play, teaching, development, research methodology, organisation of ECE and children’s health, wellbeing, and education for peace.
Maybe it is in times like the present that we, more than ever, need each other. To be able to meet and discuss, to listen and learn from each other can be a wonderful and empowering thing. My hope is that, through encounters with different perspectives and our shared knowledge, we can take one step further in our work with children and liveable, just, and equal childhoods.
Maybe it is precisely in uncertain times like the present, that we more than ever, need an organisation like OMEP, where one of the founders was Alva Myrdal, Swedish diplomat, politician, and winner of the Nobel prize 1982, strongly emphasized the need to work for peace and every child’s right to education, health, and well-being. Following in her footsteps for OMEP today, I will encourage us to be strong and bold together. I conclude by quoting Alva Myrdal from her Nobel lecture: "Hope lies in cooperation”.
Anette Hellman
President of OMEP Sweden
Associate Professor, University of Gothenburg