Anna-Maria Axelsson: Civil preparedness starts with what we do every day as ordinary citizens

Anna-Maria Axelsson is the head of Civilförsvarsförbundet, the Swedish Civil Defence League, a voluntary civil defence and protection organisation founded in 1937.

Aija & Sebastian: How did you start working in the Swedish Civil Defence League and what made you want to work for it?

Anna-Maria (Ammi) Axelsson: I first encountered the organisation when I attended a CPR (first aid) course offered by a local association. After that, I wanted to learn more, and I became a volunteer resource in my local community, ready to help whenever something happened. Later, when we moved from the city to a small village, we bought a house right beside a river—one of the rivers in Sweden with the highest flood risk. That was another reason I wanted to volunteer: I wanted to learn how to protect my own home from flooding, and as I learned more, I realised I could also teach others.

From that point on, I continued learning and teaching, and I quickly understood that I could contribute most effectively by becoming a better instructor—someone who could teach more people to do more things. That motivation became one of my inner driving forces and eventually led me to help develop our national training programmes. That is how it all began, several years ago now. I no longer live in that house, but the commitment remains.

I started at the local level, then moved to the regional level, and eventually realised that I could contribute even more by working at the national level. I also carry with me valuable experiences and a deeper understanding of how the system actually works. That practical insight—having been present during real events, having helped with flood work, and understanding how to reach out to people and in what ways—is, I believe, essential.

At the Swedish Civil Defence League, what are the main values that you stand for?

The core value has always been a self-protection approach that places the citizen at the centre. This principle runs consistently through all our courses and assignments. Whether we teach first aid, help municipalities organise water distribution, or instruct people on managing a week of home preparedness, the focus remains on the ordinary citizen. Our basic needs—food, water, reliable information—have not changed; only the channels through which we receive them have evolved. If people can secure their own home preparedness, they are then able to help others, and those helpers can in turn teach these basics further. This creates a continuous line through the entire system: preparedness begins with the individual, whose own “homework” enables wider collective resilience. This self-protection principle is foundational to Sweden’s approach. The state communicates that every person matters, but our organisation is the one that goes out, teaches people, and shows them how to put this into practice.

In Latvia there is the 72-hour backpack message. But I really like this timeline of a week that really increases the sense of reliance that I can manage.

Speaker 2: We actually worked together with the Swedish government and did this extremely big campaign in Sweden some years ago when we talked about 72 hours. So one of the first things that we have to say when we come out today is that these 72 hours are not 72 hours; it is seven days now. Because this campaign in Sweden was so big and it was so extremely well provided. So we just started a few years ahead of you. We also started with 72 hours. And now we are up to seven days.

If you have that feeling of control, you are calmer and more self-confident, and you can help your neighbour.

Who do you teach? Do people come to you or do you actively go out to communities and organisations?

We do it both ways. Many local associations or other kinds of organised groups want us to come out to them, but we also send invitations from our associations or our organisation as well. So we go both ways, and if we are going to start up or build up more volunteer resources, we do it together with the municipality. Then we do this as assignment work. And then we do campaigns together with the municipality. We search for more people: are you interested? Come to our information meeting. So it depends. If we are just out to the ordinary citizens, it is another way.

Give us a little sneak peek: What does it take to be prepared for seven days?

We talk about the basic needs: food, water, information, heat, and how to stay warm and safe in your home. But that depends on where you live and what you have around you, and what abilities you have. If you are living in an apartment in the city, maybe you should have water in bottles or boxes for a week. It also depends on how many people are in your family. Do you have pets? So you have to make a calculation. It depends on what you already have around you. And in the same way, we work with the other basic needs. So you do not make things harder than they should be. Just look at your own situation and work from that.

If you are living in the countryside or you have your own water supply, maybe you should not have lots of bottles. If you can have firewood in your house, you do not have to buy lots of equipment. So you have to work in your own way to make this possible for one week. And you can also work together. If you live in an apartment, one of the first things that you should do is get to know your neighbour. And if you know your nearest neighbours, you can do this home-preparedness work together. So you do not all have to buy a radio. You can say that you are the one who has the radio and you are the one who is in charge of the information in this house.

You are not the strongest alone. You are strongest when you work together with your neighbours.

Everybody should not run out and buy all the equipment. That would be very expensive and not so good either. So when you work together and you do your planning together, then you are going to be stronger and you can also survive for a longer time.

Yet, individualistic thinking is pervasive; people do not even consider that they may share the radio.

It was the same in Sweden from the beginning. Together with the authorities, who have worked with these messages and missions since 1937, we have always emphasised that preparedness is not an individual task. If you are part of the total defence, you cannot act alone; it requires cooperation and cohesion. You are part of a larger system, and what you do affects others, so you must act together. MSB has long stressed that people should not behave like “preppers” who isolate themselves in the forest and focus only on their own survival. That approach is incompatible with total defence. In Sweden, we also have a civic duty, and avoiding it can even lead to legal consequences. Therefore, cooperation from the start and understanding one’s responsibility within total defence are essential.

Is there a rise in people’s interest in your teaching in the last few years?

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, we have had many people who wanted to be part of the teaching system or the assignment groups out in the municipalities. That has been challenging for us to manage, because expectations were very high, and we had to take care of many people quickly. Many of them also had wrong expectations about what kind of organisation we are.

Because of how much we have scaled down our total defence in Sweden, most ordinary citizens did not know what actually exists. They wanted to be part of the civil defence, but we do not have civil defence in that form. They also wanted to be part of the national territorial leagues that the military once had, but we do not have that either. So they wanted to be part of something that no longer exists.

We had the same experience as the military. A large number of people wanted to join military territorial groups, but those groups had changed their missions. So people were searching for something that did not exist. That required us to explain the system at a higher level, and that took a great deal of time. It also slowed down our ability to integrate them into what we have today. It was not only positive that many people wanted to join at the same time.

We are still working with these gaps. People search for something that does not exist, but then they gain new knowledge and still want to be part of the current system. Now there are discussions about rebuilding parts of what existed before. For example, people talk about organising shelters, but decisions have not yet been made. That is also why our mailboxes and telephones receive many enquiries.

Today, there is renewed emphasis on togetherness. The message is again that together we are stronger.

There is a pessimistic discourse within prepper culture, meaning the development of skills and material ‘preps’ to manage disruptions. It is almost as if preppers need to believe that society will collapse very quickly in a nationwide disaster. How do you see this?

There is a lack of trust in society within some prepping communities. Sweden is one of the countries where people generally have a high level of trust in society. But trust levels differ around the Baltic Sea, and that is something we need to work on together. If we build total defence together, it will be strong. We have to build trust in each other.

We cannot take trust for granted in Sweden either. There are areas where trust in the system is low. Perhaps we can learn from each other how to reach those communities better.

How do you work with partners in the Baltic or Nordic region?

We have the opportunity to work with the REIA Engage project together with our Estonian and Ukrainian partners, and with the Council of the Baltic Sea States. Otherwise, we have lost many of our earlier contacts due to the dismantling of the total defence system. We have not had the financial resources to maintain those contacts. Our organisation was reduced from 23 employees to five.

In our five-year plan, rebuilding these contacts is a key priority. We also participate in the B Nova Network, which provides a good platform to learn about each other’s organisations and maintain contact. We receive many questions through that network. For us, rebuilding these connections is essential.

We have to start with what we can control. And we can control our home preparedness. That is a basic step that makes the greatest difference in the end.

Often in disasters, elderly people are seen as vulnerable groups. But can we contribute at any stage of life?

I do not think we should see the youngest or the elderly as groups that only need care. In Sweden, many elderly people living at home actually have the strongest home preparedness. They do not shop every day; they shop once a week or once a month. They live differently, and they retain knowledge that many of us have lost—how to sew, how to repair clothes, how to fix things at home, how to keep warm longer, how to preserve food.

Speaker 2: Much of this knowledge lies with the older generation. I have also seen that younger people, including my own teenage children, want to learn these skills. They lack the knowledge but are interested in traditional crafts. We took it for granted because it was simply how we lived. Today, young people are not always taught these skills. Yet traditional craft knowledge is a strong form of preparedness, because many solutions are found in that knowledge.

Such wise words.

I think we should not underestimate the power of cultural and traditional activities. If we start with cultural or traditional initiatives, they can act as glue. If we only talk about preparedness and war, we will not reach people. But if we build togetherness first, preparedness will follow. We also see that cultural and musical traditions have grown in importance, including in Ukraine. They provide meaning. Without meaning, we do not feel motivated to protect anything.

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