April 13, 2002
Jens Dreyer from Red Roses in
Baldersgade:
Tema YNKB april 13
Artist Palle Nielsen
Jens Dreyer frrom Red Roses
Direct transmission over the local radiosender Station 2000.
Jens Dreyer from Red Roses in Baldersgade:
Before Red Roses started in 1974, I took part in courtyard renovations. Some people were against nursery schools that bussed kids out of the city. They thought kids should stay in their own neighbourhoods. Our principle was that children should develop through play. Our nursery school is between Ganløse and Lynge, a half-hour from here.
The children play with water and sand and fire. Sometimes the water freezes and there is glass on the puddles.
Our plum cave was built by some of the parents up in a tree, so the kids can reach the plums. We fence the garden in so the animals can´t eat everything up. Some parents made a hippopotamus for the kids to play with. Hens, all our food is organic. We eat the roosters and the kids are there when they are slaughtered (if they want to). Two ducks. The mother hen sits on her eggs until they hatch. We had a pair of geese a couple of years ago. They held watch, and the police that bivouac up there didn´t dare go in. Rose trellis. When the hens go around freely, they find their own food. We climb trees – the girls climb the highest. We have climbing trees different places in the woods. In 27 years, only one person has fallen – and that was a pedagogue assistant. Children should learn to climb. They are always being transported about. They should be able to climb up and down themselves. Once, a boy climbed up to the top of tree to see a squirrel and couldn´t come down. I had to climb up to help him, and the branches were very thin up there.
A dead fox lies on an anthill, and we find the skeleton.
A great stone that can be rocked with some long sticks. It is an old grave mound.
The children are allowed to go outside the fence and they can find their own places.
A pond is fun, but it can also be dangerous.
The woods are a kitchen larder: wood sorrel, mushrooms, nettles, beech, leaves, dandelions.
A swampy stone, water on the is troll piss. On the stone there is an offer sign. Seeds were offered here.
Some good gullies – when there is lots of water and snow, there comes a little creek and we can make canals.
Sledding hill. All the children learn to ski and bicycle. They play and
experiment with the animals and study them, but they must not hug them to death.
Everyone learns to whittle. If the knives aren´t sharp, they cut
themselves..
If they are sharp, they don´t.
They learn to cook. That is an antidote to fussiness.
Bastrup Lake: We can swim, and we also have a canoe. There is also a ruin.
Some say that the mill stream is a canal connected to Roskilde Bay that allowed the Vikings to sail out.
A little spider. They get acquainted.
A hoist so they can hoist themselves up.
At the beach, they can collect mussel shells and sail with a fishing boat and touch the fish.
Palle: Those kids are really having a great time!
2000: Red Roses is just like the white schools for the saved. People who talk about integration are also the ones who send their children to the white schools.
Gillion: Immigrants won´t send their children there.
Jens: Parents think it´s too cold up there. The two institutions in Mjølner Park have nursery schools that drive out of the city, but the kids come dressed in little dresses and patent leather shoes to go to the country.
2000: I have been one of the big opponents, but fortunately I have revised my opinion. Kids have a longer workday than their parents.
Kirsten: If they are having good experiences!
2000: Service society – we service our children. What´s missing is to
include children with other generations. I went to work with my father. I want to change society. It is divided into age groups. We send kids to institutions during their most active hours.
Gillion: If they have a good day in a nursery school out in the country,
they also function well when they come home. I have seen that.
2000: What I hear and see is a bunch of frustrated kids. They are just as dependent on a family structure as ever. I can observe that in my puppy.
Gillion: They don´t need to be dependent on the family, but on adults, uncles and aunts. They must just be there. When I send my children out, I push them into a well-functioning structure.
2000: Then they are extremely privileged in relation to other children in Nørrebro.
Jens: There are 30 nursery schools in Copenhagen that drive children out
into the country, i.e. about 1000 children.
2000: Children sit and cry at night because their parents aren´t home.
Jens: That was also true in the old days.
2000: The environment is more raw. The Palestinians have seen what is happening down there. We bawl them out. We don´t see any political will to solve the problem. Why don´t they remove the cars in Rådmandsgade so the kids can run across. Everything has to do with productivity and commercialisation. Where is creativity? Table football, a bunch of computers, and a huge tv screen – that´s a youth club. Where is creativity?
One Wednesday night, three o´clock in the morning, a flock of kids went around making a lot commotion and I asked them why they were shouting like that – it´s better to shout into a microphone. And little by little they came around. I promised them complete anonymity. They learned to produce radio themselves and have done it for five years. Just as soon as we receive a crown from the city, the whole thing breaks down. Per Bregendorf, Enhedslisten, old housing activist, says: You don´t fit into our club system.
Finn Thybo: What do you mean the club broke down?
2000: The city comes with money and makes demands. You must not be personally involved, but if someone goes down in the middle of the night then you have to be there and not Thursday at two o´clock. What´s missing is the small units, intimacy. Not 100 kids. Nobody can discover conflicts before they happen and then it´s too late. What´s important is closeness. A society where you can hear it: we belong together.
We live in a divided society. I can´t take my dog with me to work.
Heine from the art academy has made some small sculptural models for the DSB property. He calls them pauses.
Six Arab boys come. They get a soda and then they draw.
Kirsten: We want to make a playground. Draw how you think it should look.
Write down what you draw and your name.
Go-cart. What kind of club is it?
There should be video, table football, hockey, all kinds of things. Race track with motor cars. Swimming pool.
It´s not Coca Cola.
Stop smoking or else we don´t feel like being here.
You can open the door.
Is it 100 percent sure we get this?
Just look at this. Here is Titan Park.
I have to pee.
We can build caves, a bicycle track.
Just one soda.
Stop now. You can come again another day.
They took all the sodas. You can´t just empty this place.Drink in here.
We are open again Thursday at 5 o´clock.
He can´t pee out there.
Finn said he could.
You can come over to the radio station tomorrow.
Morocco is up there on the globe.
The boys disappear. Some clay is missing.
Finn after them. Come with that clay.
On of the boys comes with Kirsten´s cell phone and a soda that they took.
He gets a soda as reward.