Give children and young people education and tools to escape poverty and vulnerability

What is your role at Zelmerlöw & Björkman Foundation?

I have worked with Zelmerlöw & Björkman Foundation for almost 6 years and truly love being part of this family-like foundation. 

Throughout my professional life, I have been involved in issues concerning migration, prostitution, and global poverty. Here, I get to lead a fantastic team together with a dedicated board, where we work closely with our program operations focusing on making a difference.

Tell us about Zelmerlöw & Björkman Foundation and how the foundation came to be?

Jonas Björkman and Måns Zelmerlöw wanted to do more than just donate money - they wanted to make a real impact. The idea was born to start a fundraiser and the event "Zelmerlöw och Björkman Invitational" to raise money for change. The event is built around Måns and Jonas' successful careers in tennis and music.

The choice of Kenya began when Måns, whose father is a doctor, got to accompany him on work trips there. Måns understood early on that education was the key to change and brought pens to distribute.

You've just been on a trip to Kenya yourself. Tell us a bit about what you did there?

I travel there twice a year, one of the trips is with our major partners, so they can experience the operations on site and see what we enable together.

In Kenya, we visited our program partner Kenswed Organization, which today includes a high school for 330 students with boarding facilities, freshwater well, and food service. It's a vocational school with practical training that leads directly to employment after graduation. We also run a maternal care clinic and dental clinic.

We have developed the operations and are now also building a "Mobile School" - a digital education program that reaches 2000 young people in rural Kenya. The education focuses on life skills, such as issues about clean water and human rights.

What's the best thing about Zelmerlöw & Björkman Foundation?

The best thing is the proximity to our program operations and the feeling that we're doing this together. It's a partnership where we work humanely on a smaller scale, which allows us to see direct results of our work.

How did you come to choose Octany as a platform for donations?

After analyzing different payment platforms, we chose Octany because they offered multiple solutions in one platform. Although they were relatively new then, this was a few years ago, the solution perfectly fit our needs.

What's the best thing about Octany?

It's the simplicity - both for donors to donate and for us to administer. Octany's widget is very easy to implement, and we appreciate having just one point of contact for all management.

What's happening going forward? Tell us about your dreams and goals ahead with Zelmerlöw & Björkman Foundation?

We want to continue developing the Mobile School concept in Kenya, but also expand our engagement in Sweden. Here, we have begun collaborating with organizations like My Dream Now and Changers Hub, who do fantastic work in the suburbs around Gothenburg.

We see a great need to help children and young people in socioeconomically vulnerable areas, giving them the courage to dare to dream about the future.