TFF logoTFF Associates
NEWPRESSINFOTFFFORUMSFEATURESPUBLICATIONSKALEJDOSKOPLINKS


Erni and Ola Friholt

Læs om dem på deres egen hemsida

Fredsrörelsen på Orust

ERNI FRIHOLT was born in Lilienfeld, Austria, on November 27, 1936. As a child, she was exposed to war and post-war conditions. One elder brother died during the campaign in the Soviet Union, and her father was killed on the home front just before the war ended.

Since then she has been a devoted peace worker and activist and a solidarity worker in India and Bangladesh.

From 1950 onwards, in Sweden, she studied through the adult education system and finished as a student of German, English and pedagogy, after this she worked for a few years as a primary school teacher, which in turn she left for full-time peace and development work from 1970 onwards. She was particularly involved in supporting the birth of Bangladesh in connection with their liberation war. She also went there to study a development project in 1973, in Thanapara village. In 1974, she met her "compar":

Erni & Ola Friholt in their summer café

OLA FRIHOLT was born in Morlanda on the Swedish west coast on April 26, 1937. He experienced the social change of his home town from a rather self-supporting and self-governing fishing village into mainly a summer resort with its income generated in the world market, after the exodus of a whole generation. After that he gradually became a devoted development worker and peace activist and a solidarity worker in India and Bangladesh. After his academic exam he studied teachers training and general linguistics. His subjects are Latin, French and English. After three years as a college teacher, he left for a fishing project in Madras, India, in 1970. From 1973, he worked with information for the public in a volunteer NGO, making exhibitions, editing magazines and lecturing. Then came 1974:

CURRICULUM COMMUNE COMPARUM FRIHOLT
The Friholt couple were elected onto the same board of management for both peace and solidarity development work. So it happened. Since then they very soon embarked upon their life project as freelance activists, writers of hundreds of unpaid and paid articles in various fora, lecturers in hundreds of schools, community colleges, development training courses, some university institutions (as guest lecturers). One main aim was to connect the NGO-movements for peace, solidarity, environment and gender issues with the academic world of research and useful data and theory.

Throughout all of this, they kept in touch with the Indian and Bangladeshi action groups they had once worked with, via various stipends, etc - 11 times in India. As consultants to SIDA, they made two evaluation studies of third world information work carried out by Swedish NGOs and organisations for adult education. All along they were also activists dealing with concrete development/disarmament and other development issues.

From 1977 and onwards, they belonged to groups editing peace periodicals like Pax, Milda Makter, Vi mänskor, at present with hundreds of issues.

They wrote one book on India-development from below (1984). Ola made some booklets on subjects like "living in a slum", "Solidarity trade", "Slum-development-mobilization of women". Erni wrote numerous reports on gender issues in India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, South Africa, and Namibia (as a member of the Women's Council).

They engage in solidarity trade through their summer cafe, which is guided by considerations of justice, local production, local development, the environment and educating their customers.

Torget 1, Stocken
The Summer Café with green chairs, Ola's gallery to the left

Through that channel they also disseminate the facts and complexity of the Balkan conflicts and of the peace action groups there, e.g. the numerous conscientious objectors in Serbia, the Zitzer Spiritual Republic in Vojvodina, etc. Collecting funds for today's victims of war there is their latest branch of action. Their life in general is devoted to giving a shape and a face to the idea of "another development".

The couple also has five daughters and four grandchildren, who seem to approve of their activities.

The Friholts joined TFF as advisers in 2003.


View toward the coast and ocean from the Café

The Friholts live on the coast a bit north of Gothenburg

 

Ola Friholt is a painter, too


Address

Torget 1, Stocken, S - 474 92 Ellös, Sweden

Phone

+46 (0) 304 51 215

Fax

same as telephone

E-mail


Website

erniola@tele2.se

ernifriholt@tele2.se

http://www.geocities.com/friholt/index.htm
Om Bryggcafét & Galleri Stocken


 

More about TFF

 

Läs om Bryggcafét
och Gallerian i år

Och om....

Ola och Erni

Stocken, Orust

Denna sommars musik- och poesiprogram

Caféts meny, priser och öppetider

Olas målningar

Alltsammans hittar du här

 

 

 

 

 

En underbar miljö, rättvis handel, njutning...

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Friholts create
the cakes
in their kitchen
from 11 pm to 2-3 am
in the morning

 

 

 

- the cakes have names
such as
Rosa Luxemburg,
Mahatma Gandhi,
Amandla Mandela, and
Malakoff

 

And when you eat them you get a little info about these historic figures and the necessaity of fair trade.

 

Ola and Erni Friholt could write the Gandhian sentence on their roof top:

- but they are probably too modest
to do so...

 

Articles by Erni and Ola Friholt

Erni & Ola Friholt, December 3, 2005
We want an EU Constitution for the 21st Century, not for the 20th!
A scathing criticism of the existing Treaty text but - in the best TFF style - full of ideas about what it ought to state. And the authors deliver the concrete text proposals too. Highly educational and relevant because the present text will be implemented to a large extent also without referendums.
In Swedish too.

TFF, 10. oktober, 2005
TFF:arna Friholt får Lilla Fredspriset 2005
Vi gratulerar!! En underbar belöning av Ernis & Olas energiska, konkreta och livsbejakande fredsarbete!

Erni Friholt, TFF rådgivare, 19:e juli, 2005
Vad är fred? En personlig och uppfordrande betraktelse
Med anledning av att Erni Friholt tillsammans med 999 andra kvinnor i världen - men den enda ifrån Sverige - har nominerats till Nobels Fredspris ser hon tillbaka på sitt liv i freds-, kvinno- och miljörörelsen - och blickar framåt på det nödvändiga folkbildningsarbetet.

See also
TFF Forum Collection, July 19, 2005
TFF's Erni Friholt nominated for Nobel's Peace Prize
TFF's Erni Friholt is among the 999 women around the world who have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005. It's all about a fascinating initiative to promote the idea of "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005"! Read about it and click the links so you can learn about this global initiative and support it - 'cause who else could be more deserving that Prize?

10 februari, 2005
Vi vill ha en EU konstitution för vår tid och för fred !
Öppet brev till Statsrådsberedningen med en rad konstruktiva förslag till omskrivningar av det existerande förslaget och helt nya avsnitt.


Home

New

PressInfo

TFF

Forums

Features

Publications

Kalejdoskop

Links



The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research
Vegagatan 25, S - 224 57 Lund, Sweden
Phone + 46 - 46 - 145909     Fax + 46 - 46 - 144512
http://www.transnational.org   E-mail: tff@transnational.org

Contact the Webmaster at: comments@transnational.org
© TFF 1997 till today