Support for Children in Denmark

The past few months have been exciting for the team in Denmark, with lots of great activities at the children’s centers in Aalborg and Copenhagen. During the holiday season, the children were busy with crafts and storytelling – like the exciting stories from Greenland where we can see one of the counselors handprints inlaid in the print of a polar bear! (see picture) Blue Cross Denmark is working together with Blue Cross Greenland to open new centers and expand its services in Greenland based on critical needs. The children have also had the opportunity to participate in outing to a local aquarium, ice skating and cutting down the center’s Christmas tree! Such outings are a blessing for children who come from a home where they often have to play the role of the parent or caretaker. They miss the opportunity to engage in fun, child-friendly activities with good adult role-models. These activities give them a sense of normalcy and allow them to do what children around the world are supposed to do – have fun!

Outside the activities with the children, the team has been busy mobilizing volunteers and even participating in a local TV series, gaining additional exposure and support for the project. In February, Blue Cross Denmark received the great news of a donation from the state to open Barnets Blaa Hus in four new locations in Denmark!! This will allow Blue Cross Denmark to reach more children and families with much needed services in a country where 122,000 children grow up with parents who drink, and are often forced to grow up too quickly, suffering abuse and neglect. This support from the state affirms the need for our work with children and families plagued by addition in order to create productive, healthy future generations to come. We could not have gotten to this point without your generous donations and support – thank you!

Finally, we would like to share with you the powerful video made by Blue Cross Denmark, which speaks for itself! Thank you again for your continued support and we look forward to sharing more updates with you soon.

Christmas is getting closer and our activities are moving inside. Luckily, we now have an agreement with a local sports hall, so our volunteers can take the kids there and play a variety of games for a couple of hours in the afternoon. When they get back to the house, it’s all about the good old Danish “hygge”, with hot cocoa and board games.

Of course it’s not all fun and games, and the therapeutic work with the kids continue. We still have individual and group sessions, where the children feel safe and talk about their problems and feelings. The group for babies and their mothers continue to grow and it’s nice to see have the mothers opened up, become friends and help each other. That is one of the reasons we started a parent group. Here the parents can discuss what is going on in their life and reflect together on how things could be and what need to happen in order for a change to take place.  It’s clear to see how these parents’s confidence grows and how this affects the children in a good way.

“Thank you so much! It is so important what you are doing for the kids, that like me grew up under hard circumstances” (Young woman from marked day in Aalborg, August)

“My children have not been doing well while I was an active abuser , they could have needed a place like yours” (Former addict from marked day in Aalborg, August)

Another good news is that the teacher union for students in Aalborg held a charity event and choose to support our house. The evening was fantastic and featured music, comedy and dancing acts. Some of the money the students collected where spent on activities in the children’s autumn vacation. Here we went to a big indoor playground, watched the movie “Inside Out” in the cinemas and watched a live dinosaur show, which was especially popular. We were happy to see so many parents participate as well, which is a tendency we see more of. We would like to continue embracing the whole family, so they together can have good experiences. Therefore we are very grateful for the fundraise from Global Giving and a big thanks to everyone who donates.

"The Child's Blue House , is such a place where there is always someone who will play with me” (Child from the house).

"When I know there is someone who believes in me, I begin to believe in myself " (Child from the house).