Safe City Tour: Parents are natural resources in Esbjerg

Categories: City stories
Udgivet: 23 Jun - 2021

The Safe City Tour travels to Esbjerg

      

Harnessing the natural resources of parents, uplifting parents as role models, encouraging parent engagement in school and leisure activities, supporting youth into leisure jobs, strengthening civil society in vulnerable areas, and creating dialogue and trust with neighborhood police officers in Esbjerg

The 15th week of the Safe City Tour took us to the Danish city of Esbjerg, where we saw how the city uses parents as natural resources and rolemodels, supports youth through leisure activities and jobs, strengthens civil society in vulnerable housing areas, works with local police and ‘teams up for wellbeing & against radicalisation’

 

Images: Esbjerg municipality

In 2021 Esbjerg and Nordic Safe Cities are taking action to explore and develop new methods and initiatives to strengthen contact with parent groups, and increase communication with and involvement parents in day care institutions, schools and leisure activities in vulnerable housing areas.

More broadly, Esbjerg collaborates across the municipality’s departments and the South & Southern Jutland Police Department to prevent and address issues of radicalisation. The efforts against radicalisation serve as an extension and specialisation of the general, broad-spectrum crime prevention efforts, which in Esbjerg are rooted in SSP (cooperation between schools, social services & police) & Prevention. Esbjerg has also set up a network group across the departments for Children & Culture and Citizens & Labour Market to ensure the continuous coordination of preventive efforts against radicalization

On the first day of our virtual visit to Esbjerg, the city highlighted parents’ as a powerful natural resource.

– The power of parents is unmatched”, says Lise Plougmann Willer, Head of Department for Social Service & Labour Market in Esbjerg. That is why it is so important that parents join forces and collaborate for the well-being of children and young ones!

Learn more in the video below:

 

 

In Esbjerg, the municipality, Housing associations, and the National Building Foundation collaborate on the social master plan ‘Bydelsprojekt 3i1‘. The aim is to strengthen civil society in vulnerable areas via education/employment, life chances, crime prevention, cohesion & citizenship.

The Community House ‘Krydset’ in Esbjerg is an example of architecture constituting an active gathering point. It hosts Bydelsprojekt 3i1, daycare, youth club, local police, training facilities and an assembly hall, leading to a daily flow of locals in the building.

 

Images: Esbjerg Municipality

 

On the second day of the Safe City Tour, Esbjerg presented their initiative to engage parents in leisure activities.

In Fritidsbutikken – The Leisure Shop – in Esbjerg, parents can exchange volunteer work for support to their children’s participation in local leisure activities. This creates involvement, ownership – and happy children and adults, explains Leisure Coordinator, Mille Louise Julsgaard Gedebjerg.

Learn more in the video below:

 

 

– “In Esbjerg Leisure jobs are important – they entail positive experiences and general education, and help to keep youngsters out of crime. Youngsters with leisure jobs are good role models who can inspire the next generation”, explains Leisure job consultant, Ermin Culjandji

Ermin continues, I do presentations on leisure jobs at local schools and can support the youngsters when it comes to applications and contacts. And the pupils can relate to me, as I used to live and attend school in the area.”

 

Images: Esbjerg Municipality

 

On the third day of our visit to Esbjerg, Ali Macow highlighted the benefits of engaging parents in their children’s activities and uplifting parents as rolemodels.

– “Parents in vulnerable housing areas who support activities and collaborate with the municipality around the children in the area, are paramount figures in creating wellbeing and a good future”, explains Chairman of The Somali Cultural Association, Ali Macow.

Learn more in the video below:

 

 

Niels is a neighborhood police officer in eastern Esbjerg. His most important work tool is neither uniform nor handcuffs, but the ability to form relations. The local station sharing its premises with daycare and youth clubs, provide daily contact with several generations of residents.

A patrol car isn’t of any use on the paths, so bicycles are the vehicles of choice for the local police. The officers are more accessible on two wheels, making it easier to meet the locals and get the all important day-to-day talks that form the foundations for the relational work.

 

Images: Esbjerg Police

 

Greetings from school district Cosmos! In Esbjerg, they team up for wellbeing and against radicalisation! Local interdisciplinary teams collaborate with the schools on pupils and parents, providing insights on crime and drug prevention, educational guidance and social work.

Interdisciplinarity and sparring are turning points in the local geo-teams in the school districts in Esbjerg. Common knowledge about pupils, parents and local challenges create synergy in the daily collaboration around well-being for pupils and parents.

 

Images: Esbjerg Municipality

 

On the final day of the Safe City Tour in Esbjerg, the city highlights the ‘2 hours a week‘ initiative.

Danish can be tricky, even for those born in Denmark. Parents in Esbjerg can enroll children in “2 hours a week” to learn danish through play and conversation. The aim is to get as many pupils as possible talking as much as possible about as many subjects as possible.

Once a month, parents participate in a teaching course in the LANGUAGE CLUB in “2 hours a week”. Here, they get insights into the children’s materials and work. The parents commit to the teaching courses by enrolling their children in the club, making the effort sustainable!

This concludes the Safe City Tour in Esbjerg. To learn more about prevention work in Esbjerg, read their Safe City Portrait below:

Safe City Portrait

Follow the Safe City Tour as it continues to Kristiansand, Norway, June 21 – 25,  on the Nordic Safe Cities Twitter and LinkedIn feeds.