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Copenhagen Municipality tackles neighbourhood morale in Nørrebro

Shifa Rahaman
June 28th, 2016


This article is more than 8 years old.

More and more people in Copenhagen report rising levels of satisfaction with their neighbourhoods – except for those living in Nørrebro

The big city of lights (photo by Ellyodd)

While neighbourhood cheer is on the rise in most parts of Copenhagen, Nørrebro residents are more insecure living in their neighbourhood than ever before.

In response, Copenhagen Municipality has come up with a novel action-plan: they’ve tied up with start-up community organisation Ghetto Tours to arrange walks around Nørrebro. The tours, led by locals, will improve morale by facilitating a dialogue between the various factions that call the area home, feels the city mayor, Frank Jensen.

“We are in talks with the locals in outer Nørrebro, especially young people, about how we can make the area a more safe and secure place to live,” he told DR.

A place to call home
According to the so-called security survey carried out by the municipality every year, 14 percent of locals now report feeling unsafe living in Nørrebro – up from 11 percent last year.

READ MORE: Copenhagen residents feel safer

If the district is to get any safer, young people need to be involved, believes Jensen.

“It’s about getting them to feel that they matter to their local area,” he said.

“It is our experience that this is the way forward towards making the area more safe and secure.”

Talks with both Ghetto Tours, the police, and other neighbourhood committees began on Monday.


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A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”