Arriving in a new country is rarely straightforward, but for many migrant women in Stockholm, it can mean isolation, uncertainty, and navigating unfamiliar systems. Stockholm’s Neighbourhood Mothers initiative is changing that. Coordinator Ann-Kristin Rydén and International Affairs Officer Annika Rosbring explain how the project is opening doors to employment, education, healthcare and social services for newly arrived women in the city.
Starting from scratch in Stockholm
Arriving in Sweden as a newcomer brings a particular set of challenges. “Imagine if someone arrives during winter. It’s dark, it’s cold, and people in the city tend to stay home instead of going out,” says Annika. “It can be a very isolating experience. It’s not easy to navigate society.”
For women who don’t yet speak the language, that isolation can quickly deepen into something more entrenched, cutting them off from the services, opportunities and connections that could help them find their footing. Stockholm’s Neighbourhood Mothers initiative was designed to reach these women. To do so, the city is employing women with their own migration background to do outreach work in their local neighbourhoods, using their language skills and lived experience to build the kind of trust that formal public-sector contact often cannot.
Before going out into their communities, neighbourhood mothers receive training covering public institutions, Swedish working life, healthcare, social services, democracy, gender equality and domestic violence, equipping them to guide others through the same systems they once had to navigate alone.
Since 2018, the City of Stockholm has employed 98 neighbourhood mothers across different city districts, collectively reaching around 3,000 women every year. The results go well beyond information-sharing. Through outreach work and group activities, women have broken out of social isolation, strengthened their sense of agency, and taken concrete steps towards employment, education and greater participation in society.
Opening doors, changing lives
Newly arrived women are disproportionately at risk of isolation and are often further from the labour market than their male counterparts, which is why the initiative specifically targets women. The decision to focus on mothers, however, reflects something deeper than labour market statistics. Mothers are often the heart of family life, and when they are connected to their local communities, the effects ripple outwards.
[Mothers] reach out to target groups that the city did not even know lived there.
Reaching these women is not always simple. Many are not connected to formal services and are unlikely to seek help through official channels. That is precisely why neighbourhood mothers work from within their own communities, drawing on shared languages, cultural understanding and personal experience to reach women who might otherwise remain invisible to the city entirely. “They reach out to target groups that the city did not even know lived there,” says Annika.
The ripple effect
The impact of the initiative extends well beyond the women the neighbourhood mothers meet directly. One of the most significant challenges they help address is the climate of fear and mistrust that has grown around social services, fuelled by misinformation circulating on social media.
“There are very scary AI-generated videos circulating online stoking fear amongst immigrants. They show police and social services taking children away by force, with everyone screaming,” says Ann-Kristin. “They look completely real, and unfortunately, people believe them.”
As a result, many families avoid preschools, doctors and social services altogether. Neighbourhood mothers tackle this head-on, first by addressing the misinformation directly with new recruits during training, and then sending them out equipped to reassure the women they meet.
The difference this makes can be profound. Ann-Kristin recalls a story shared by a neighbourhood mother about a woman whose teenage daughter had started using drugs and stopped going to school. The mother was too frightened of social services to ask for help.
The neighbourhood mother was able to reach out, provide information, and start to build a relationship.
“When she got to know the neighbourhood mother, they went together to a Swedish service for young people with drug problems, and then to social services. Together, they were able to find help for her daughter. She ended up going back to school. It was a happy ending that could have gone very differently without support.”
The ripple effects are visible at a city level too. Where neighbourhood mothers are active, more children are enrolling in preschool, a meaningful indicator, given that children who attend preschool tend to perform better in school later on. In one case, a neighbourhood mother from Somalia made contact with an entire community that the city had not even known was there.
“They were distancing themselves,” says Annika. “But the neighbourhood mother was able to reach out, provide information, and start to build a relationship.”
A two-way transformation
For the women who become neighbourhood mothers, the role is often transformative in its own right. There are no formal qualification requirements for the position. What matters is personal character, lived experience and language skills. For some, it is their first job, not just in Sweden but anywhere.
“Many of them have never worked before. This is their first job ever,” says Ann-Kristin. “But you should see the development over the two years they are with us. They can be shy at the start, unsure of what they have to offer. By the end of their time as neighbourhood mothers, they’ve accomplished so much and helped so many people. They bloom.”
Beyond confidence, they gain practical knowledge of how Swedish society works, build professional networks, and often go on to pursue further education or employment. Some go further still.
Annika recalls one woman who joined the programme with very little formal education and no previous work experience, but proved to be an exceptional neighbourhood mother. She was subsequently offered a permanent position with the city, working in administration and outreach.
“She has been working for the city for about seven years now,” says Annika. For a programme designed to help women find their footing, it is a remarkable measure of its own success.
By the end of their time as neighbourhood mothers, they’ve accomplished so much and helped so many people. They bloom.
Growing the family
The model is also evolving to reach women at different stages of life. In 2024, Stockholm launched Neighbourhood Sisters, a pilot initiative following the same core concept but targeting women aged 20 to 29. Younger migrant women face their own distinct challenges, including health problems and a tendency to avoid seeking help, and they often require different meeting points and approaches, including social media. The pilot employed six young women and reached around 1,000 young women in its first year.
The question of neighbourhood fathers comes up often. Berlin did attempt an equivalent initiative for men, but it did not take hold in the same way. The reasoning is practical: men tend to enter the labour market more quickly after arriving, which provides a degree of social connection that women, particularly those with children, are less likely to have. That is not to say men are excluded. Neighbourhood mothers reach out to men too, but the specific focus on women reflects where the need is greatest.
Spreading the word
European collaboration has been crucial to Stockholm’s initiative from the start. The Neighbourhood Mothers concept originated in Berlin and was spread through an EU-funded project connecting cities working on the integration of newly arrived women. Stockholm adapted the model, employing neighbourhood mothers directly through the city rather than via an NGO, and broadening their outreach beyond family and childcare matters. Since then, the exchange has gone both ways.
The concept is quite transferable throughout Europe because we all have similar structures.
The concept continues to spread. Within Sweden, Sigtuna and Jarfalla have adopted the model with support from Stockholm, and connections are growing with equivalent programmes in Finland, Denmark and Norway.
For Annika, one moment captures the potential of that international exchange particularly well. During the European project, a group of neighbourhood mothers travelled to Vantaa in Finland to meet their counterparts there. “The neighbourhood mothers could meet neighbourhood mothers in Finland, and they could communicate because they both spoke Arabic,” she recalls.
“We spoke English with our Finnish colleagues, and the neighbourhood mothers were just chatting away with theirs. They learned so much. The concept is quite transferable throughout Europe because we all have similar structures. The possibilities to exchange ideas and ways of working are phenomenal.”
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Stockholm’s Neighbourhood Mothers initiative is one of the shortlisted ‘City Initiatives’ at the Eurocities Awards 2026. You can view the full awards shortlist here.
The winners will be announced at the Eurocities Annual Conference in Utrecht, 8-10 June 2026. Register for the Annual Conference to join the ceremony.
