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Filip

Hello, my name is Filip Dašić. I am a 16 year old student living in Gothenburg, Sweden. I was born  on 7th of January 2002 in Novi Sad, Serbia, but I’ve grown up in Belgrade. My family is made out of me, my older brother Ivan, older sister Tamara, my mom and dad. My mom is an architect, although she’s never worked a day in her life as one. Instead, she always worked with my dad in their private business. My dad finished a police school and worked for a few government agencies and bodies, but once he was done he opened his private business and that’s been their occupation ever since. My brother moved to USA when he was 19 years old. He always had that dream of moving to USA and living an “American dream”. Since he kind of accomplished it at such a young age, I consider him successful. On the other hand, I have a sister who was always a great student in school, got into one of the best universities in Serbia, however dropped out for reasons unknown to me. I never considered her resourceful and right now she’s working normal student jobs in order to make some money.

We never got along too well as a family. It always felt like we were against one another and never together. My parents were always away for the work. Since the age gap between me and my siblings was big, we never got along. Therefore I kind of grew up on the street. I would wake up, eat breakfast and run off immediately outside. I think that made me tougher and more resourceful. I always played football, basketball or some game for children with my friends. I think those moments as a 7 year old kid, with a ball underneath his hand, next to a friend that today I can call a brother, made my childhood. Growing up like that had its pros and cons. Since it wasn’t the nicest neighbourhood, we would see terrible things, such as shootings, drug abuse and a lot of violence. On the other hand, I think seeing all those stuff made us a lot tougher and prepared for the “real” world. 

In the school, I was always a great student up until moving to Sweden. Even though I academically good, that doesn’t reflect on my behaviour in school. I was always trouble prone with my friends. We made a lot of mess in our school and it was always for the sake of fun. From the teachers point of view, we were terrible-behaving kids, but if I had a chance to go back and change something, I wouldn’t change a single thing. Thats because those jokes that back then weren’t seen as funny, now cannot be told without laughing to tears. And I’m really glad I had, and myself was, friends who were ready to do anything just for the sake of memory/fun. 

Those memories, and stuff that we went through together, built us into a family, one that I was lacking at home. Years and years spent together, built this amazing trust and reliance between us. I love the way we are always down for hanging out, going out or on trips, or down to hear you out when you need to talk to someone. I can easily say that that group of 10 friends are easily my biggest treasure.

In June of 2016, I decided to move to Sweden with my dad. I had an amazing childhood in Serbia, but I knew there was no future there. Move to Sweden was one of the toughest things I have ever done. I came here with views on the world, manners and expectations that were either unrealistic or unacceptable here. I had a really hard time adapting and changing myself for the life here, but I can gladly say it is a change for the positive. I spent first 7 months pretty much on my own since my dad was working and I was in charge of all the chores. I was basically given our company’s credit card and told to take care of everything at home while my dad was away. My mom couldn’t move to Sweden since she had big health issues that prevented her from leaving the country. Therefore I was a 14 year old, with no phone that worked and no friends left all day long. 

When I started the school, I wasn’t accepted well either. I had different views on everything in the world compared to my new classmates and that caused a lot of division between us. It seemed to me like they would always prefer sitting home, playing video games instead of hanging out. That was my first impression and it was very wrong. I was a lone kid sitting in a corner, doing homework, waiting for the first opportunity to go to Serbia so I would live a bit. 

It was like that up until I met one friend that gave me a chance here, and ever since she has changed me for the better. After that one friend, I opened up and started socialising like before and made even more friends that I could count on. 

I play basketball, I am a big petrolhead and I really enjoy music. I think I’m particularly good in basketball but a little bit out of form currently. Music is something special because I feel like its an exit door from the reality, its an escape from all the problems. I don’t have a favourite song, actually I feel that favourite songs and genres are just the representation of our current emotional state, therefore we like certain songs because they relate to us in the moment. Overall I like hip hop the most, but you’ll see me listening to everything that has ever been made, from “Ave Maria” by Schubert to “Stargazing” by Travis Scott. I feel like this gives a small glance into the whole story of who I am and what made me into that, but at least its something fo rte beginning. Hope you like it!

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Myriam

Hey, I’m Myriam Widell, I am 16 years old born in Gothenburg Haga on the 29th of December 2001. My mom is Jenna, she is Swedish and is a stylist who has her own clothing company called Junkyard, my dad is Hassan he is Ivorian and was a rapper in the 90’s but is now just a music producer at Universal. My dad is Muslim, my mom doesn’t have a religion, I am not religious but I know a lot about the Muslim religion and culture.

I have two little brothers and one little sister, they are 9, 11 and 15, I am the oldest one. I don’t know my grandparents from my dad’s side, but I did know my grandfather from my mom’s side, he died of lung cancer when I was 3 or 4 years old, he was a paint artist, my grandmother was a nurse but now she owns a ceramic/glass company in Öland called “paradisverkstan”, she also has a horse stable with young horses who she trains to be future trotters.

We moved to Paris when I was 5 years old because my dad prefers the French program then the Swedish one, so I went to a French school with a British international program for 11 years and then I went one year in a normal French school. My family and I moved to Gothenburg 4 months ago because of my mom’s work and my dad stayed in Paris for his work, so I’ll need to travel to Paris once every month to see him.

My parents are really busy people because of their work so I don’t spend family quality time with them. They give me a lot of freedom, so I do everything on my own, such as traveling alone or with friends, going to my parents parties or spending a lot of time being lazy at home. We have many ethnicities in the family, so I fluently speak 3 languages, French Swedish English and one that I studied for many years, german. I speak French with my dad, Swedish with my mom, a mix of French and Swedish with my siblings and English when we are all together.

On my free time, I usually hang out with friends, go to cafés, restaurants, shopping, etc... I have been doing Thaï boxing for 9 years and won the French national championship last year, i also like horse riding but I usually just train the horses or take care of the stable. I love listening to music and like every type of music, I could listen to rap one day and then another day listen to jazz. My dad has always thought me to never judge something\someone before knowing what they/it really are.

My life in Paris was nice, but I have always preferred Gothenburg because it has a better “vibe” then Paris, here people are more open when in Paris people only has money on their mind, they judge people for what they wear and look like, not for what they really are.

That is all you need to know about me, hope you like it !

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Eva

Hello, my name is Eva and I am 18 years old. I was born in Russia so my native language is russian but I also know swedish and english as you probably realized. When I was 10 years old I moved to Sweden with my mom. She got married and now we have a big family of 5 people and two dogs. I have a little sister Nellie and a step brother Felix, they both are Swedish. Nellie is just 7 years old, she was born not so long after we moved to Sweden. She now goes to a Swedish school in Portugal and loves horses more than anything in life. Felix is also my younger stepbrother, he is 16. He now lives in Sweden with his mom and also goes in IB but in Kungsbacka Aranäs Gymnasiet.

I’ve been moving around for for two years now and finally ended up back in Sweden. At the age of my 16 our family moved to Portugal. Well, half of the family (parents and Nellie) is left in Portugal and the other half (me and my stepbrother) is here in Sweden. Together with Felix we started in IB school in Portugal but in different grades of course. Before I’ve been to the new school I was very excited about it: new people, new language, new cultures, new country… Unfortunately St. Dominic’s IB school didn’t live up to the expectations. I studied there for half a year and quit it. After some time Felix quit as well. He moved back to Sweden but I did not…

I couldn’t just sit at home and do nothing so I decided to earn some money. I got an au pair job in London so I went there the next day after I got the job. It was a Chinese family with three children and two of them had autism what I wasn’t really expecting. Well, everything was fine and I did a good job but after a while I got tired. I was substituting their main au pair who went for vacation, so when she came back I left.

I went to Russia, to the city called Rostov-on-Don. It is the city where I was born and my grandma still lives there. Russia is a huge country with lots of different cities. To be more precise I lived in a tiny town where we had nothing except a McDonald’s. In september I started college but I was not very excited about that. I had the best grades in class but that didn’t make me happy, so I traveled to Moscow, which is the capital of Russia. It’s a very beautiful city and most of my friends now lives there. My latest trip to Moscow had a very big impact on my coming future. I decided to finish the IB which I quit but this time in Sweden. Russian education is good but only for those who’s going to stay in Russia forever, while IB diploma is very honorably in every country. This is the story of how I came to Sweden and how I ended up back here after my world travelling.

Except my life story I would like to tell a little bit about myself: interests, hobbies, etc.

Already since I was a child I loved to draw and paint and this interest has followed with me my entire life. I don’t draw so often anymore and that makes me sad, that is why I have chosen Arts as a one of my subjects. I can’t say I’m very good at arts but I will get there and visual arts is going to help me. I do have some works but I don’t attach much importance to them because they are just small drawings done of boredom and the ones I made long time ago I lost them while moving to different countries. I hope for the inspiration to come back and also learn some new skills which it can’t be enough of. I would love to be able to create big pieces and at least finish my works, so if somebody asks me to show it I had something to show..

Apart from drawing I am a sporty person and I’ve done different kinds of sports since I was 5. I learned how to swim when I was 3 years old and at the age of 5 I started synchronized swimming, it’s also called water ballet. I trained 4-5 times a week and had the best time of life, but it was hard though.. When we moved to Sweden we tried to find a place where I could continue training but we didn’t, so I had to stop. I was really upset about the whole situation but then I found another sport which many of the young girls do in Sweden - horse riding. I started from the beginning because I knew nothing about horses but just after 2 years I already went to jumping competitions. I became quite good at it and started to think about buying my own horse, of course I didn’t it’s too much of work.. These two sports are not the only ones I have done, but they are the most serious ones. Besides I have done tennis, football, dancing, volleyball and probably something more I just don’t remember because it’s to many.

Except sports a huge part of my life is music. I listen to it every day usually 4-5 hours a day. I can’t imagine a day without music I would have gone crazy. My music taste changes from times to times but for the last two years I listen to rap and techno. These to genres are the closest to my feelings and my lifestyle. I think it’s not a big part of people who listens to techno, but in Russia it’s very popular and common. You can find techno music at bars and some special cafées and there are even techno clubs. Here in Sweden I haven’t heard or seen about something similar unfortunately… I wish one day I will start making my own music. Well, unlike techno rap music is very common not just in Sweden but everywhere. My mom also likes rap, that makes me happy because then we can listen to it together when we are going somewhere by car.