Apart from the two schools in Denmark, Kofoeds School has sister schools in Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, The Czech Republic, Ukraine, Armenia and Romania. They work on the same basic principle - help to self-help.

Click on the map to go to a zoomable map with contact informations of every school.


How it started
For many years Kofoeds School Copenhagen maintained contact with people in Poland working with social and pedagogic issues. This collaboration started in the aftermath of World War II, when employees from the school in Copenhagen organized humanitarian aid to Poland and thereby established contact with Polish social workers.

The contact was re-established in the early eighties by the school's present director, Jens Aage Bjørkøe, and in 1997 the first school in Poland opened.

Organisation
The Eastern European schools are independent entities but Kofoeds School Copenhagen has assisted with support and know-how before, during and after new schools open. The schools are opened and run by local actors with a knowledge of Kofoed’s School from international networks dealing with social policy issues.

The schools work and function differently and are not copies of Kofoeds School Copenhagen. However, the share the same purpose and basic idea: To help people with socio-economical problems re-activate their lives, enrich their spirit and self-esteem and upgrade their qualifications for the job-market.

The school in Copenhagen regularly invites leaders and employees from the different international schools to Denmark for visits and seminars. A newsletter is also distributed, which serves as a forum for all the schools and examines general social policy problems.

Results
The new schools in Eastern Europe - and their common idea of ‘help to self-help’ - have already served as an inspiration to the governments in their respective countries and influenced official social policy.

In Poland a law has been passed on activating the unemployed, which is based on the Kofoeds School principles. In Lithuania the local school has influenced the treatment of the prisoners in the state’s prison system – these are now able to participate in activities in the Lithuanian Kofoed’s School before their release.