Few people know exactly what you do, tell us Bodil!
Ronald McDonald House in Gothenburg is a non-profit foundation. The house is located next to Drottning Silvia Children's Hospital, with which it also has a close collaboration.
Here at Ronald McDonald House, families whose children have been affected by serious illness live. The families often come from far away and have been referred to Drottning Silvia Children's Hospital to receive the right specialist care. We also house families from Iceland and our other Nordic countries.
During difficult and often long treatment periods, the families are offered accommodation and a reasonably normal everyday life in the midst of everything they are going through. It becomes a "Home away from home" when it is needed most and where the whole family can be together. We strive to be as much like a home as possible where families can "relax" and gather energy for tough days at the children's hospital. How long you live here varies greatly - from single nights to weeks, months and even longer.
We work to facilitate everyday life for our families and add a little something extra to an otherwise tough and worrying period for the families. We do this through collaborations with companies and help from private individuals, as well as through various types of fundraising.

What are the main challenges you face?
It has been two tough years with the pandemic and it has become clear what challenges we cannot be involved in and influence. One example is our occupancy rate. In the best of worlds, we would wish that we were not needed and that children would not suffer from serious illness, but unfortunately that is not the reality. So when a lot of care has had to be postponed, it has affected our Houses financially due to lower occupancy rates and also lower county council reimbursements.
Fundraising is another challenge that has also been tougher during the pandemic. But now we are looking forward to a fresh start, even though we are still living in turbulent times with war in Europe. The pandemic has taught us to be very creative in finding new solutions.

What makes you enjoy being the Operations Manager at Ronald McDonald House so much?
What drives me most as Operations Manager is being able to make a difference for families whose lives are turned upside down when their children are affected by serious illness. Being able to work together with my fantastic staff and constantly develop our operations, always with our families in focus, is so wonderful and motivating. I am so happy that I have the best job in the world. But much of what we do in our operations is not possible without our fantastic House Friends (partners) who are involved in making a difference for our families, and meeting new companies, associations, and private individuals who choose to get involved in our operations for our families is so enriching. That together we are strong and do good.