The Royal Court

The King visits Södertälje

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The King, together with the founder of Sweden's Sports Without Borders project, Admir Lukacevic, at the project launch. Photo: Pontus Lundahl/Scanpix.
On Wednesday 15 September, The King visited Helenelund School and Hovsjö in Södertälje.
At Helenelund School, The King launched Sweden's Sports Without Borders project by throwing up a basketball between two pupils from Vall School and Helenelund School.

In his speech, The King said that, through the project, Södertälje had created the ideal conditions for children and young people to have a good start in life — and faith in the future:

"Sports Without Borders is a partnership between the municipality, industry, clubs and other organisations. The thing that they all have in common is that they are striving to give you — our children and young people — faith in a good, secure future. This is a great responsibility, and an important promise to you."

In Hovsjö, the CEO of Telge Hovsjö AB Patrik Derk explained what had happened there since 2008 when The King and Queen visited the area on Sweden's National Day.

Young people then talked about the various projects, what they had done, and which activities were planned for the future.

In his speech, The King expressed how pleased he was at what Hovsjö had achieved in two years:

"When we visited, you told us about everything you were doing and everything you wanted to do. I promised to come back to see how all your plans went. 

"Today I'm here to keep my promise. I'm back here in Hovsjö, and I can see how much you've achieved. I can also see that you've kept the promises you made two years ago. A lot has happened in the last couple of years. I'm impressed!"

Sports Without Borders


Sports Without Borders is an approach that gives children and young people power over their own lives through leader-led sport. The approach is based on initially introducing Sports Without Borders and the leader in sports classes. As the project gains momentum and new leaders are recruited from among the young people, the project spreads to new residential areas.

The founder of Sports Without Borders in Sweden, Admir Lukacevic, started the movement in Landskrona and has received funding including a scholarship from The King's Young Leadership Foundation.

Telge AB


The Telge Group is Södertälje Municipality's wholly-owned company tasked with making Södertälje more attractive. Its operations include housing, commercial and public premises, purchasing, energy and district heating networks, recycling, harbour operations, water and sewage, energy trading and electricity supplies.