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Gunnar Wieselgren first worked as a professional counselor, before deciding to devote all his energy to a bridge-building reconciliation effort between individuals, between ethnic groups, between countries and different faith traditions, which is the goal and purpose of Initiatives of Change. It was not an ordinary career. Those of us who knew him also know that the concept of career was alien to him. He had found a great and compelling purpose, and he wanted to serve it for free. In all this, the Christian faith he had inherited from his parents' home was a good support.
The efforts of Moral Rearmement were financed by voluntary contributions from people around the country. It was through a collection in the mines of Kiruna in the north, among shipyard workers in Gothenburg and businessmen in Skåne, that a home and meeting place, Alnäs on Djurgården in Stockholm, could be purchased in 1952. It was there that Gunnar's initiative, leadership skills and his great organizational talent became important for 50 years.
The home was a constant meeting place for people from many walks of life as well as for guests from near and far. In 1973, for example, during one of the first major international environmental conferences in Stockholm, some of the leaders of the large Indian delegation came there and had to exchange the conference corridors for the Swedish home environment. The huge guest books tell of politicians and businessmen from Japan, Africans from different parts of the continent, Sami people from Sweden and Norway, trade unionists from Calcutta in India. There are approximately one hundred countries and all continents represented.
Gunnar became a central figure in this work both in Sweden and abroad. But above all, he will be remembered as a very faithful and caring friend who never missed a birthday or anniversary. Himself a visionary like his great-grandfather Peter Wieselgren, albeit more of the calmly purposeful than sky-rocketing kind, he gave friends with similar visions his long-standing and encouraging support, spanning decades. It could be their visions for the mining industry in the north, for energy solar cells for every village in India, for the Gulf of Bothnia as a global water reservoir, or for giving immigrants to Sweden the opportunity for a real-life education for employment in the Swedish workforce. For the last 20 years he was heavily involved in the development of Somalia and for many Somalis as well as for his friends around the world he leaves a big void behind.
For many friends
Nils-Gösta Ekman
Lennart Sjögren
Ahmed Egal
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Source: DN.se, https://www.dn.se/arkiv/familj/gunnar-wieselgren/, visited 2023-03-08.
Swedish
