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258
in. constitution and administration of sweden.
Private charity in Sweden has little in common with the
almsgiving e. g. in the South of Europe. Still, in Sweden also there is,
naturally, more or less distribution of relief without any very exact
knowledge whether there is need of it or as to how it will be used.
Great efforts have been made during the last few years to give a wiser
direction to charitable endeavours; and this is especially the object of
the Charity Organization Society in Stockholm founded on an English
model.
The Charity Organization Society (Föreningen för Välgörenhetens
Ordnande), commonly called F. V. O., has for its mission to work in the
capital towards a well regulated collaboration, irrespectively of differences of
religious or political opinions, between benevolent private persons, institutions,
or associations, and the poor relief boards, and, consequently, while striving
to check and discourage mendicancy, to concentrate and regulate all our
available strength so as to permanently ameliorate, in accordance with a united
systematic action, the condition of those who are in need of help. All who feel
interested in and who are willing to take part in such a work have a meeting-place
at the Central Office of the Association, where persons in need of help also apply.
The members of the Association, moreover, send thither all applicants for relief
unknown to them, that information may be obtained about them.
The Central Office has at its service persons of both sexes, who visit the
homes of the applicants and inquire into their circumstances. Through constant
intercourse with the poor themselves and their landlords, employers, etc. these
»visitors» are in every separate case able to give the quickest possible information
in regard to their true condition. The visitors present a report on every case,
containing all the information they have been able to obtain, so that the Office may
be in a condition to form a conception of what can and ought to be done. Each
individual case with reports are brought before a working committee chosen from
amongst representatives of the Parish Board of Guardians, various charitable
societies, and other persons who work amongst the poor; and the application is
summed up in a document (»case-paper»), and the committee decides what steps
shall be taken or recommended.
The Central Office is not specifically intended to be an administrator of
relief, but only to arrange matters and to obtain the collaboration of all those
who in each special case can do their share; but the public uses it as an
intermediary also in supplying relief. From a lending fund are issued small loans
to needy persons when this is found advisable. Implements of work, such as sewing
machines and similar articles, are also given out as a loan. A »slovd» department
provides work for women and men who, from various causes, cannot obtain it
otherwise. In a home for children, infants from poor families receive care and
attention for a time, when, for one reason or another, such cannot be suitably
supplied by their mothers.
The association endeavours, by means of pamphlets, meetings, and lectures,
to propagate information relating to whatever can favour rational work for the poor.
The F. V. 0. was organized in 1889. The number of members is now
about 2,200. At the Central Office, which was opened in 1890, 12 persons are
daily assiduously occupied; only one of these, a bookkeeper, is paid. The
registry at the Office now contains 12,000 »case-papers», in which is found
information concerning about 50,000 persons. Funds, administered by the Board of
Directors for specially stated objects, amount to nearly 450,000 kronor. Through
the Central Office, as intermediary, about 450,000 kronor has during these ten
years been paid out in relief; and more than 100,000 kronor as wages for work done.
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