Sammenslutningen af Danske Socialrådgiverstuderende[24.3.09]
World Social Work Day in Denmark 2009
The Association of Danish Students of Social work (SDS) celebrated for the second time World Social Work Day on March 17.
Derived from IFSW’ theme for day “Social Work and Social Development”, SDS’ sub theme was “Social workers generate social change”. Way to often the general opinion and the pic-ture in the media of social work and social workers are influenced by negative stories about social unchangeableness. But through different events the students all around the country wanted to promote the positive stories about social work as well draw attention to the impor-tance and the need of the social worker’s abilities and professionalism, when it comes han-dling and solving social problems and generating social change.
WSWD was celebrated in 5 cities all around Denmark.
Like last year the students in Holstebro celebrated WSWD by handing out coffee, cake, bal-loons and flyers to the citizens of their town. The purpose of this event was to spread the good stories about social work and social change.
The students in Copenhagen met their co students and teachers with breakfast, flyers and balloons on WSWD. They wanted to pamper and remind themselves and their co students and teachers, about the importance and meaningfulness of their coming profession as social workers.
In the cities of Aalborg, Odense and Esbjerg the students had approached the celebration of WSWD by arranging a wide variety of lectures and debates at their schools. Gathering for these lectures and debates were that they all focused on a specific topic or field of social work and the social workers indispensable contribution in these fields.
In Aalborg the topic of the day was crime prevention and rehabilitation. The program for the day included visits from an inmate at an open prison, a policy officer and a social worker from a joint crime prevention program and a national expert on young people and gang crimes. It all created a higher understanding of the field as well as an understanding of the unique role of the social worker in this specific field.
The topic in Odense was prostitution. They students had invited people from The Resource center of Prostitution to enlighten and share their knowledge of the field with the students as well as teachers. Also during the day the member of the Danish Parliament and leader of the Socialistic people party Villy Søvndal also gave an inspiring speech.
In Esbjerg the students had managed to create a very interesting program for the day. The topic of the day was integration and women. Among the speakers were Villy Søvndal, social worker Mette Blauenfeldt, local politicians, women with another ethnic background than Danish and etc. Together with the many speakers the students handed out breakfast and had organized a collection of clothes to ben-efit different purposes and programs.
The reactions from the participants of WSWD 2009 have been very positive – both those students, who took part in the planning of the events and for those, who came to the events. Therefore it is most likely that SDS will continue to celebrate WSWD. We are sensing a growing interest and attention to the events of day from our stu-dents, teachers, educated social workers and other interest groups, and we hope to continue to make WSWD a tradition in Denmark.
On behalf of The Association of Danish Students of Social work,
Lisbet Bylov Falgren
Vice Chairman of SDS
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