Ilko Corkovic came to Sweden as a refugee 23 years ago, and now he helps Syrian refugees as the mayor of Borgholm.
He woke up on the bridge over the frozen Baltic Sea. He was at the entrance to Borgholm with his family, after a three-day long trip from Banja Luka. Barack 110 in the refugee camp was their new home.
They shared the barrack with another family, so six of them were living there. They were hanging out with other Bosnians and Herzegovinians, since around 600 of them were living in the camp.
However, the life took him to the center of the city life, after 14 months of intensive language learning. In the beginning, he was washing dishes in hotels and cleaned apartments, but at the same time he was studying. After graduation, he started working in tax administration and became politically engaged.
However, he says that he never dreamed that he will become the first man in Borgholm one day, and he is on top since September 2014. His Social Democratic Party won at the elections that year, and he got the most direct votes.
The fate, from the second year of the mandate, leads him to where it all started in 1992. In the same refugee camp where he stayed with his family, he is welcoming and helping new refugees. Family from Syria lives now at number 110. They also share the room with other refugees.
“We really do the best we can for their children to go to school, so that they have a good entry into the Swedish society, because they need all the help they can get. I know what it means to leave your country, your house and start all over again. We showed a really good result and we got the reward from the Swedish government for this work,” said Corkovic.
(Source: Al Jazeera)
