Some of the "Ramsö Sisters". From the left: Lotta Grönkvist, Ingrid Frideborgsdotter, Susanne Fonser, Monica Baumgarten and Mia Nilsson. Photo: Jenny Haglund
My family and I moved here from Gotland in 1997. We changed from a big island with lots of tourists to a small one with many summer residents. Ramsö is 1.6 kilometres in length and about 4-500 meters wide. We are one of the 18 families that stay here all the year round. During the summer, all 250 houses are occupied, so there is lots of activity all over the place.
Ramsö is close to Waxholm, and you can see the city from our island. No car ferries stop here, so we have to park our car in Waxholm and take the regular boat from there, or maybe use our own little boat to get home. When we first moved out here there weren't many boat runs, but nowadays there are up to 17 runs in a day. This boat is also the "school-carrier", which is why it runs so often. Over the weekends, the boat runs less frequently, but we find that with the nine runs on Sundays we are able to manage well enough, so we just sold our little motorboat. There is a new family moving out here almost every year, and these families usually have, or are about to have, children, so there are now 23 kids aged from one to eighteen.
In January of 2002, I was involved in a traffic accident and had a long struggle before getting my old life back. When I was about to restart my company after years of rehabilitation, I was working in journalism and with qigong/acupressure. In order to find some support, I started a network for female entrepreneurs on Ramsö early last year. Eleven women, out of a "possible" eighteen on the island are entrepreneurs.
In everyday conversation, we refer to ourselves as the "Ramsö Sisters", but the official name is "Ramsö Kvinnliga Företagarförening" (The Ramsö Association of Female Entrepreneurs). We are a varied bunch. As for me, one of the things I sell is the silence of the island, through my qigong courses. People stressed out by the big city life can take a cruise from Stockholm through our beautiful archipelago, and after about an hour and a half they reach Ramsö. Once here, they will be able to enjoy the peace and quiet and learn gentle meditative movement on my pink Chinese carpet in the living room.
What about the other women? Katherine Lindqvist has worked globally for many years, as a lobbyist for the environmental movement, one of her projects has been to save the whales. She has been the Chair of Animal Rights Sweden and has recently started a company called Filantropa, which tries to get Swedish companies to undertake philanthropic efforts - to show social awareness by their continued support and commitment to environmental or development projects for example.
Jenny Haglund has experience as head of marketing in the tourism sector. She moved to Ramsö a few years ago and opened a delicatessen in Waxholm last autumn.
Susanne Fonser used to be assistant publisher/text editor for schoolbooks. She now teaches Grounding (African rhythm and movement) and has invented her own product, which will be manufactured in Ghana.
Lotta Grönkvist is an art director, and one of the things she has created is Jenny Haglund's lovely logo for her shop "Haglund's delicatessen".
Monica Baumgarten is the most well established of us all, our senior entrepreneur. She runs the dance school "DansCompagniet" in Stockholm together with two other women.
Ylva Kjellberg is the one among us who knows Ramsö best. She moved out here when she was thirteen and lived here alone with two dachshunds after the death of her mother. If there is anything you want to know about Ramsö, just ask her.
She has done research on working life and development at Lund University. She is now married to an Australian, spending half the year in Australia and the other half here on the island. Ylva joins our network during the summer when she is here, and then keeps in touch via e-mail from across the globe.
Nicola Dahl is a wonderful artist who is able to transform old furniture headed for the scrap heap into wondrous creations.
Åsa Wärn works with design, of books among other things, Malin Svedberg plans to start her own company this coming autumn, and Mia Nilsson, actress and singer, has just moved to the island.
Well, we are a mixed crowd, and what we usually do is meet up once a month to listen to and support each other, doing some coaching and giving others a shove in the appropriate direction. Those entrepreneurs among us who also have small children take turns bringing the children to the day care centre and picking them up, making life as an entrepreneur a little easier.
Ingrid Fideborgsdotter