Malmö dwellers forced to deliver their own mail

As postal workers assigned to the Malmö district of Seved feel too threatened to carry out their duties, the residents themselves will now have to deliver their own post.

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”You do what you have to do, we have to solve it somehow. And we have no idea how it will work before we have tried, that's how I look at it,” Swedish Postal Service (Posten) district manager Rolf Weiffert to local paper Skånska Dagbladet.

For months, Seved has been plagued by continuing problems.

Threatened postal workers in the area were forced to carry panic alarms and many residents say they don't dare go out at night.

From February 1st, two residents in the area will help authorities deliver mail to some 500 households in the area.

The Posten and Malmö city will be co-operating on the project, which will begin as a 6 month trial project and focus on getting young people engaged in postal delivery, according to the newspaper.

"I'm satisfied," Anders Malmquist, district manager with the city of Malmö, said.

“Young adults get an insight and an understanding of how it is to work in the postal service."

The two young people who will deliver the letters are currently being recruited.

They will be employed for 12 months by Jobb Malmö, a community project, and get introductory education by the postal system, followed by an internship and, the plan is, eventual employment as a postal worker.

The municipality sees the venture mostly as a workforce project to steer the unemployed youth into work life, even if the idea itself stems from criminality and the lack of safety that has come to characterize the area.

The postal service denied that there was a need for new postal worker recruitment, but stated that the there was a danger of the postal service coming to a halt.

Since the police beefed up camera surveillance of the area in December, the number of incidents has decreased, but the district, which has 4,500 residents, has always had considerable social problems.

Half of the population is between 19 and 44 with a majority of foreigners.

Less than half of the adults have paid employment and the average income is low.

Youth gangs have taken over parts of the town and are engaged in more or less open drug trafficking.

In October, one postal vehicle was also subjected to an attempted robbery.