Danish advent calender to support children in Myanmar

For some 50 years, a special advent calendar supporting developing countries has been made by public service channel DR and Danida, Denmark’s developing service which is a part of the Foreign Ministry.  The calendar has been a regular part of the tradition of pre-Christmas season for most Danes.

In 2012, nearly 200,000 Danish children opened an advent calendar supporting the fight against poverty.

Profits from the sale of Children’s Advent calendar 2013 goes to Danish Refugee Council’s work for refugee children and their rights in Burma because there is still conflicts in some parts of the country. Together with their families, the children fled their homes and villages. Now they live in a refugee camps with their mother, father and siblings until there is peace, and they can return home.

The children are vulnerable because they are on the run – and live in a country that is often struck by devastating natural disasters such as earthquakes, cyclones and mudslides. When the children fled, they lost the everyday, the familiar home, school, leisure, dreams and rights – they therefore need help.

Children’s Advent calendar and Danish Refugee Council work together to provide refugee children in Myanmar a better life – and take care of some of their basic rights.

Among other things this means that the Danish Refugee Council will send children in refugee camps in school, improve their health, and teach them how to take care of themselves when they grow up in a country like Burma. Children will be given  school books, learn how water is treated for drinking – and learn about nature’s warning signals when extreme weather is on the way, and they must seek safety.

In 2012 profits from the sale of the developing country calendar went to IBIS ‘work to build schools in northern Ghana. It sold 160,000 copies of the Advent calendar and surplus amounted to DKK 4,925,000.

Since 2000, 150,000 and 250,000 copies of developing country calendar have been sold annually.

Read more about Children’s Advent Calendar 2013 here 

Read more about the Danish Refugee Council’s work for children in Burma here

 

 

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