New Lord Provost sets her sights on community and women’s issues

“What I really hope to give to the city and achieve during my time as Lord Provost is to make people feel welcome into the City Chambers.

“Our communities, it’s all their City Chambers, it’s not the politicians’, and they should be absolutely feeling that,” she says.  Ms Bolander, the first EU national to become Glasgow’s first citizen, invited the Evening Times into her office to tell our readers exactly what she plans for her time in office.

And the answer is to become involved in local communities by helping grassroots groups help themselves.

She also wants, during her tenure, to create a new event in the Chambers that will recognise and thank community councils.  The Swede, who moved to Glasgow in 1995, added: “I want to get out into the communities and meet as many people as I can to support community engagement and activities.  “I want to get out to the community centres we have around the city and get out to the many community councils we have.

“They are doing fabulous work and are about to get more powers under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill.

“I would like to engage with them and thank them personally but also create a new event in the City Chambers to thank them.”

Ms Bolander has already hit the ground running, attending our South Side Community Champions event and handing out a prize.  She added: “In my role I am extremely fortunate because I get to see all these things people are doing, I get to give them out awards.  “I did the Community Champion Awards and it was lovely to go around and chat with people before to see what they were doing.  “Most of the things I get to do are the positive stories about Glasgow and that makes me very lucky.”

But, Ms Bolander says, it was not community issues that first led her to politics.  As told in the Evening Times earlier this week, the mum-of-two had worked in previous careers – including archaeology – before deciding to enter politics, becoming councillor for Anderston/ City ward in 2015.

It was becoming a mother that really made her consider how political decisions trickled down into everyday life.

She said: “It was becoming aware around the time my daughter was born in 1997 and people were talking very much of the Scandinavian culture where you breastfeed for longer and you’re home with them for the first year.  “And people were very putting that down to the culture. But it’s actually political decisions that gave the mother the chance to be home for the first year.  Of course it’s much easier for someone to breastfeed a child for a lengthy period then, than if you have to go back to work. And the other political decision that was taken was in regards to childcare.  “There is universal childcare in Sweden and that’s made women so much more easier for them to take part in family life and have a career.  “And I think those things here in the UK, in Scotland, haven’t quite got to that point yet.  “That is why I started to get politically engaged, realising there are so many things which affect us.”  This keen awareness of women’s rights also means the Lord Provost will be joining Glasgow City Council’s Lean In team, working for gender equality.

Ms Bolander also said she is always keen to mentor younger women. She said: “The Scandinavian model of childcare actually frees up lots of intelligent women to be part of society and to help evolve society and to be full participants in life as well as the workforce.  “Now we have to defend the women’s rights in the way we thought 10 or 15 years ago that we would not have to defend them, you can see the battle is not won.

“So I’m very strong on equalities and will work in any way try to support women to take part in civic and political life.”  As also told in the Evening Times, Ms Bolander first fell in love with Scotland on hearing bagpipes played when she was a little girl.

Still a keen bagpipe enthusiast, she said she is delighted at the chance to be  Chieftain of the World Pipe Band Championships.

But will Glasgow get to hear our Lord Provost on the pipes?

She said: “I’ve not been playing actively for a long, long time so I don’t think people will be seeing the LP on the pipes. If it does ever happen it will have to be something slow and easy to play.”

While the Lord Provost is also very excited about switching on the Christmas Lights, she also reflected on the more sombre elements of her role.

SHE said: “Occasionally they are very sad, such  as vigils for London, Manchester and Kabul.  “The first one, Manchester, was harrowing because it was the first time I had to do something like that but that is just a small, small percentage of what I have to do.”

Having lived in Glasgow for 22 years, Ms Bolander has a firm handle on the city and agrees that People Make Glasgow is the ideal slogan.

But she also remembers her first impression of Glasgow – and how that has not changed as much as she would like.  Again, she leads the conversation back to communities.  Ms Bolander said: “What struck me when I first arrived was the differences in Glasgow. You have areas of absolute poverty and then areas right next door that seem very affluent. That struck me as very odd.  “And it hasn’t changed a lot in that time, we are still struggling with the poverty in certain areas. But that links back to helping communities understand that they can do things for themselves as well.  “As a councillor I had the enormous privilege of having Townhead in my ward and we had Townhead Friendship Club for elderly people.  “Now they are going out and helping with a clean up in the area.  “Community work like this, it creates a positive spiral where people think, ‘We can do things for ourselves, we don’t have to sit and wait for someone to do it for us’.

“In my time as Lord Provost  I want to reward that community spirit.”