The Danish Development Minister, Ulla Tørnæs, applauded when the money from last year’s bottle refund collection from Roskilde Festival was donated to DanChurchAid partners in Cambodia, writes the online news-site of DanChurchAid (Folkekirkens Noedhjaelp).
On March 21, at a donation ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, DKK 414,000 (approx. USD 66,514) was donated to the organizations Friends and Cambodian Women’s Crisis Centre (CWCC). Representatives from Roskilde Festival the Cambodian press and the Danish Development Minister were present when the check for DKK 414,000 was handed over.
CWCC received half of the donation and will spend the money on establishing a workshop for former slaves in order to offer them the opportunity of getting an education. The organization Friends will use the donation for further research on the issue of child slavery in Thailand.
After the donation ceremony, the Danish Development Minister, Ulla Tørnæs, underlined the importance of engagement from governments and civil society, locally and internationally, to join forces against slavery and human trafficking.
Information Director of DanChurchAid, Thomas Ravn-Petersen, said that a strong and close cooperation already exists between Cambodian and Danish civil society from the Danish music festival, Roskilde Festival, DanChurchAid and the Cambodian partners
”With support from Danida (Danish International Development Agency), the cooperation will now be four-dimensional,” Thomas Ravn-Petersen stated.
After the ceremony, the Danish Development Minister, Ulla Tørnæs, and her companions were given a tour of CWCC’s new crisis centre in Phnom Penh for women and children who have been exposed of assaults or human trafficking.
Alcohol and Aid
The Roskilde Festival is the largest annual outdoor music festival in northern Europe, and its participating fans are known to consume large amounts of alcohol, thus leaving many bottles to picked up by volunteers who then donate the collected bottle refund fee to a good cause. Each year, Roskilde Festival chooses a humanitarian focus. Along with the funds from the refund collection, a part of the festival’s profit is donated to this focus.
Again, the humanitarian focus for this summer´s festival is slavery in Cambodia. More than 700 people have volunteered for DanChurchAid to collect empty bottles and cans to support the fight against modern slavery in Cambodia as part of the project Act against Slavery.
For more information about DanChurchAid and the Roskilde Festival, go to http://www.noedhjaelp.dk/sider_paa_hjemmesiden/bliv_frivillig/roskilde_festival.
