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First flag flying day in 2024: Queen Mary’s birthday

Flags will be flying on all official buildings and on buses on 5 February in celebration of the popular Queen Mary, whose Australian roots inspired her work in her foundation, H.M Dronning Mary Fonden.

The article continues below.

By Bente D. Knudsen

Flags will be flying in Denmark, as  Denmark’s new Queen Mary will be celebrating her 52nd birthday.

You can read more about what Danes think of their monarchy here.

During all her years as crown princess , Queen Mary has been highly engaged in the fight for women and young girls’ rights around the world as patron of the UN organisation Women Deliver.

Up until this year she has also handed out the award Women’s Board Award every year, a prize awarded to a young successful female board member. The new Danish King and Queen have yet to decide which patrons they will keep in their new roles.

The purpose of that award is, amongst others, to provide role models for other women by focusing on the inspiring female board-members that do exist in Denmark and who are on the next step towards becoming board chairmen.

The award was launched in Denmark in 2014 after inspiration from Norway and Sweden who each have equal awards.

She is also extremely engaged in the work of her own foundation, Mary Fonden, which she launched after the first few years of marriage when she had finally decided what to do with the “small” sum of DKK 1.1 million raised in Denmark and Greenland at the occasion of the Crown Prince Couple’s wedding in 2004.

She used the sum to start her royal foundation, just called Mary Fonden in Danish, with no allusion to the royal background. However, with her new titel as Queen of Denmark the foundation has been renamed to show the royal background and is now known as HM Dronning Mary Fonden.

However, the sum was not enough to launch all the projects Crown Princess Mary had in mind.

Find out how the then Crown Princess Mary was able to finance her foundation below.

Looking around at the many foundations in Denmark – all major Danish corporations have foundations – think of the Carlsberg Foundation, Augustinus Fonden, A.P. Møller Maersk Fonden, and Novo Nordisk – just to mention a handful, so Crown Princess Mary decided to ask for more capital from some of the others around.

Today the many projects are funded with the help of the capital stock provided by a group of eight co-founders and other foundations in Denmark.

They have ensured a solid economic foundation and the capital stock now stands at around DKK 150 million.

The article continues below.

This capital stock has been set aside and remains untouched, while the full annual return is used to combat social isolation within the  foundation’s three focus areas: Bullying & Well-being, Domestic Violence and Loneliness.

Queen Mary emphasises in many interviews that she has always been particularly conscious of the people who are not part of a group, who are all alone and unable to understand why they are excluded from the community.

Through her foundation, her desire to do something for the socially isolated has been realised.

The article continues below.

The first focus area was Bullying and well-being which Queen  Mary brought with her from Australia when she developed the Free of Bullying project on her initiative, after being inspired by the Better Buddies programme, introduced by the Australian organisation The Alannah and Madeline Foundation, in her native Australia.

Free of Bullying is a pedagogic anti-bullying programme that strives to prevent bullying in preschools, after-care centres and primary schools among 3 to 8 year-old’s. It consists of a suitcase with pedagogical tools such as Buddy Bear, conversation boards and the use of rhythm.

These tools enable teachers to talk to the children with ease about an otherwise abstract subject such as bullying. And studies show that many of the children become more caring toward each other, while no less than 98% of teachers would recommend Free of Bullying to other institutions.

Bullying actually rarely occurs when the children in a group have been made aware of the difference between teasing for fun and teasing for real. And when they learn that it is cool to be able to say no and help others.

“It is clear that children attending preschools and schools that work intensively with Free of Bullying are significantly better at handling teasing and bullying,”says Jan Kampmann, professor at the Department of Psychology and Educational Studies, Roskilde University (from the foundation’s homepage).

Free of Bullying was introduced in 2007 as the first of the foundation’s projects and is now being implemented by more than 1,400 preschools and 520 primary schools and after-school centres.

Pictures: Mayra Navarette, Bente D. Knudsen, Inger Stokkink

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