Alcohol-free spaces for children in Greenland

Blue Cross has hired Nivé Heilmann as Consultant for Children and Young People's programme in Greenland. She is a qualified teacher with many years of experience with relief work in Greenland. She has, for example, held classes in children’s rights and she has trained volunteers to read the signals sent by children. She has been chief of staff at Sermersooq Municipality, worked with the Red Cross and for a while she held the chair of the government’s alcohol and narcotics council.

This year, Nivé Heilmann is going to travel round Greenland to strengthen the work of helping children in families where there is alcohol abuse. In addition to helping, Nivé Heilmann will encourage and train volunteers among adults and young people, starting with the local branches of the Blue Cross in Greenland.

 The job with Blue Cross provides a fantastic opportunity to put focus on the plight of children  in Greenland. There is huge need to help people to help themselves. There are members of the Blue Cross spread out around the country who would love to work with children and young people and I can help them to do this.

– The idea is to use Blue Cross facilities and meeting halls for activities for children and young people and perhaps for their parents.

– In the towns that already have centres, I hope we can carry out activities together. Collaboration is an important part of making our work a success. We may be slightly different, but we all have our hearts in the right place.

We are most thankful for your support and we want to continue this important work in Greenland and look forward to updating you again in coming months.

Working to create a new culture towards alcohol

More than 7 million children in the EU (9%) live in families adversely affected by

- Parental drinking can affect the environment in which a child grows up through financial strain, poor parenting, marital conflicts and negative role modelsi.

- A large number of studies have reported a variety of childhood mental and behavioural disorders to be more prevalent among children of heavy drinkers than othersii.

-Besides, the risk of child abuse is higher in families with heavy drinking parents

Drastic Measures in Greenland

High rates of alcohol consumption in one far northern settlement in Greenland have led the government to declare it dry in this November. This is an extreme measure but International Blue Cross warmly supports the Greenland Government at its evidence based policy that reduces the access and availability to alcohol and hence dramatically reduces the harm. It is wonderful to see that public health is at the heart of the national policy. Nobody would disagree that alcohol consumption in Savissivik, a settlement in far northern Greenland, is at the high end of the scale. Public intoxication has been one of the visible effects, as are property crimes such as theft and vandalism. Worst of all, child-neglect is said to spike whenever parents hit the drink too hard.

We want to congratulate the local actors at these good advocacy results and hope that in this settlement supermarkets will continue having empty alcohol shelves also in the future. Thank you for your support, together we can influence more!