Charity at Danmission

Charity work Danmission

Lea, Andreas, Julie and Anne Sofie

Charity at Danmission

We went working for the Danish charity organisation, Danmission.

We had scheduled four hours of volunteer work, from 10 to 14.

(Wednesday 2nd March: 4 student are going to work in the clothing department)

Danmission has existed for around 180 years, and consists mostly of volunteers!

Danmission is not only a secondhand or thrift shop. They have big projects all over the world, some here in

Europe and others in third world countries.

Danmission earned 74 million kroner, approx. 9,9 million euros in 2013 alone. 3,2 million euros came from

their secondhand shops.

Danmission lets people in third world countries start their own businesses. Many charity organisations only give

food and money to those in need, whereas Danmission has a saying;

‘Give a man a fish, and he has food for a week. Learn a man to fish, and he has food for his entire life’

Danmission lets people borrow money, so they can start their own business, and they do not charge interest rates

on the loan.

They also have what they call ‘widow projects’. In some countries, becoming a widow can ruin you. In addition

to grieving over the loss of your significant other, you will also lose your source of income. If you have

children, you can no longer provide for them.

Danmission creates jobs for widows, so they again can provide for their families.

The store ‘Alverden’ sells clothing, shoes and other thing made by people in third world countries. The items

are a bit expensive, but they are made under good conditions, and the workers are earning a fair amount of

money, which means: It’s fairtrade!

We all really enjoyed working as volunteers, even more when we knew what a difference we make!

Volunteer work is not at all boring, and it really sets your world in perspective, when you are told that what you

get for selling a cup, is enough to provide four days of clean water for three families is amazing!

We really recommend doing volunteer work. Your effort could really make a difference for many people. And

remember, a wise man once said;

‘If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito in your room’

Posters about reusing paper boxes, food leftovers, old clothes and cloth cuttings made by 7th graders of Alovė school

Posters about the project themes (made by 9th grade students)

Here are posters made by our 9th grade students. Every school member in Vanttila can have a look at them and pay attention to important issues linked to environment! 

Food weighing in Odense

In Odense at Hunderupskolen, we also weighed leftovers, but since we don't have a canteen and we don't have organized school lunch, it was difficult to weigh leftovers. But the students went to all classrooms and told about the mission, put up special bags for leftovers that day, and collected the bags later the same day. Especially the younger students took the mission seriously and left almost nothing from their packed lunch from home. So with 17 classes (24 students pr class) it came to 7,5 kg of leftovers. That's 18,38 grams pr student. We have to add that some classes misunderstood the task and threw out milk cartons (we didn't seperate the content of the bags..)

How to reduce household waste.

Merili (Form 8) made a poster `How to reduce household waste`.
Estonians started to pay more attention to this important issue only during tha last decades. We prefer cloth bags to plastic ones when shopping, bigger packets to smaller ones, and instead of throwing away things we can mend them, reuse creatively or recycle.

FOOD WEIGHING IN VANTTILA SCHOOL 2016

FOOD WEIGHING IN VANTTILA SCHOOL 2016

Here are the results for the food weighing that was done last year:

2015  students: 459

All the classes in total: 7,9 kilos. The average amount waste per student: 17,2 grams

 

This year the food weighing was done on two different days and this time we did not weigh the amount of food waste for each class separately. The weighing was done at the end of the day, and the amount includes all of the students’ and the teachers’ left overs.

Students & staff: 500

On Monday, January 25^th we had macaroni casserole and the waste amount was 7 kilos for the whole school.
On Tuesday, January 26^th we had veggie paella and the waste amount was 18 kilos for the whole school which is more than double the amount than on Monday.

The average amount of waste per person:

Macaroni casserole: 14g

Veggie paella: 36g

Therefore the average amount of food waste was 25 grams per person.


In 2016 we didn’t tell the students we were going to weigh the food waste. Last year the students knew about the food weighing.

Final thoughts: Finnish students throw away lots of perfectly fine and edible food. Apparently students don’t really like vegetarian foods.

 Written by Atte, Oona R. and Elena

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TEACHER’S NOTE:
The staff of the school cafeteria were not very happy last year when we did the food weighing, because on that particular day the students did not take enough food, and at the end of the day there was a lot of left-over food that went into the garbage. The students probably didn’t want to take any food that would end up in the waste bin, so they ate much less than they normally would. Also, the class with the least amount of food waste won a prize.

So this time we teachers decided to keep the food weighing a secret, and did not tell anyone about it. We also wanted to compare the amount of waste on two different days to get a more realistic result, as the meals that were served were very different.

 

Helping ‘Julehjælpen’

Just like last year, we chose to assist ‘Julehjælpen’.

If you do not recall any mention of ‘Julehjælpen’, it’s a Danish organization, which provides boxes with all

you need to celebrate Christmas, to less fortunate families.

This year, we wanted to help them again, so we gathered all our old toys and sorted it into different

categories. We didn’t just give away our own toys, but many other students came down, and gave us their

old toys.

The entire collection was broadcasted by TV2 Fyn, a Danish TV-station. Our teacher Susanne and a student,

Benedikte, were interviewed by TV2 Fyn.

Both interviews can be seen here. They are in Danish, but the essential meaning is described in this paper.

http://www.tv2fyn.dk/artikel/elever-hjaelper-julemanden

In the interview the two are telling about what it feels like to help others and do charity. Susanne says “It’s

about stepping out of yourself and see everything from another perspective.” And what Susanne says is very

important when we talk about caring and sharing.

(This was just the beginning…)

(That’s a wrap!)

It was a really lovely day because we got to see all the happy families giving up their toys.

It was also a little sad because the families had had a connection to the toy they were giving up, but the

thought of helping a child with limited means, gave them the courage to give it up.