About IPPNW-Students Sweden

The Swedish affiliate of IPPNW – SLMK (Swedish Physicians Against Nuclear Weapons) focuses on the challenge to abolish nuclear weapons from the world. The affiliate has 3000 members and among them about 100 are students. There are currently active student groups in 4 of the 6 medical universities in Sweden (Gothenburg, Stockholm, Umeå and Uppsala). As there are no nuclear weapons on Swedish soil, and that Sweden is not a member of NATO, the international perspective is very important for Swedish students.

International Student Representative

Wenjing Tao is one of the two international student representatives of IPPNW and one of the prides of IPPNW Sweden. She started being active in IPPNW in 2006 and since then she has got loads of things done. She has joined and arranged delegations, given lectures, workshops and dialogues. She has participated in many conferences, meetings and forums. She has been coordinator of NWIP. Wenjing Tao is reliable and dedicated and no one that has met her can forget her wonderful smile!

Contact

The current national representative for IPPNW-Students Sweden is Thomas Silfverberg.

Activities

Lectures and courses
The student groups arrange open lectures where persons involved in the nuclear weapon issues can have a chance to increase the awareness of these things. There are also possibilities to participate in one or two day courses on disarmament, peace or foreign politics.

Films
The students arrange movie nights and film festivals showing films that take up the nuclear weapon issues, such as Dr Strangelove and 13 Days.

Newspapers
The Swedish students write articles and letters to the press in local and national newspapers and of course to the paper that is sent to all the members of SLMK. Furthermore the students are interviewed from time to time by local newspapers after local or international peace activities.

Visits to embassies
In attempts to influence the nuclear weapon states, physicians together with students are paying visits to these embassies. The students are playing an important role as a voice of the younger generation – a perspective which is very interesting for many of the officials. The good thing about this is that after each official meeting at the embassies they need to send a report back to that specific country.

Swedish student meetings
Each year the Swedish students meet and discuss coming activities and current political issues. These meetings are great to introduce new students to the organisation.

Mayors for peace
Students have taken active part in the work to get more mayors signing up for the mayors for peace. Especially the students in Umeå have put down lots of efforts. Swedish students have also visited Las Vegas to make the mayor sign up for the list!

NWIP
The Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project was founded by Swedish student Richard Fristedt and Danish student Caecilie Buhmann in 2002. Since then Swedish students have been participating and arranging dialogues, workshops and meetings in places like the USA, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, DPRK (North Korea), Russia and United Kingdom. The biggest success so far was the initiative to start a IPPNW student group in Iran, which now has about 200 members!

Nuclear Weapon Free – My cup of tea
This project started off in Stockholm as a peace activity in connection to the visit of Hadatoshi Akiba – the Mayor of Hiroshima and president of Mayors for Peace. Tea and biscuits were served right between the Swedish parliament and the Royal Palace to everyone that passed by. While drinking there tea the student discussed the importance of being aware of the threat from nuclear weapons and why medical students care about it. They were asked to discuss this further next time they had a cup of tea with someone and in that way create a peaceful chain reaction.

Dialogue with Decision Makers
Swedish students have taken part in some of the DwDM delegations arranged by the IPPNW. Swedish students have been to NATO, the European Parliament, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Russian Atomic Energy Agency (which handles Russia’s nuclear arsenal).

Conferences
Swedish students attend the European Student Conferences as well as the World Congresses of IPPNW as participants, lecturers and workshops moderators. Students have been sent to World Peace Forum and European Social Forum to discuss nuclear weapons.

More
Furthermore Swedish students have taken part in ReCap and demonstrations such as the blockade of the Scottish naval base Faslane, the home base for United Kingdoms nuclear submarines.