About Ungdomsøen| Ungdomsøen

Øen er åben

Ungdomsøen is a platform for experiences and community. Here you can immerse yourselves, strengthen your bonds and explore the history and nature of the sea fort.

Everyone is welcome on our island. You can visit us with your friends, family, colleagues or youth club. We create new communities and memories all year round.

Historien bag

Ungdomsøen is located in the historic Middelgrundsfort, built between 1890 and 1894. Thousands of soldiers trained and lived here when the sea fort was part of Denmark's defences.

In 2015, Ungdomsøen was bought by Nordea-fonden and the A.P. Møller Foundation as a gift to young people. It was a group of young scouts who came up with the idea of turning Ungdomsøen into a youth island. Since then, the old fort has been renovated with support from Nordea-fonden.

Over four years, 70,000 volunteer hours went into renovating the overgrown old sea fort, so it was ready for the opening in August 2019.

700 young people were asked about their thoughts on the new youth island: If you got your own island, what would you use it for?

Ungdomsøen opened in August 2019. Hundreds of young people have helped renovate Ungdomsøen and decide what kind of place the platform should be and what values we have. Their thoughts and dreams are today our dogmas and our compass in everything we do at Ungdomsøen.

Every year, a group of young people moves to Ungdomsøen and gives a year of their life to volunteering in creating Ungdomsøen. We call them Give-A-Year volunteers. They are an important and indispensable part of everyday life, helping to develop projects, welcoming guests on the quay and setting the direction for Ungdomsøen together with the rest of the community.

We are developing and renovating the harbour to make sure the historic fort will still be here in the future. At the same time, we want to create even better conditions for projects and events. Ungdomsøen stays open all year round, just as usual. The project is supported by the A.P. Møller Foundation.

Vores dogmer

Our dogmas are the foundation Ungdomsøen stands on. They set the direction for our activities and projects.

Doing > learning: At Ungdomsøen there is room to fail. The most important thing is that you try and act together.

Youth for youth: We believe in the abilities of young people and give them real influence.

Disruption: Ungdomsøen should challenge, disrupt norms and offer new perspectives on the world. We should challenge habits and traditions and do something other than what we usually do.

Truly open: At Ungdomsøen there are many ways in, so everyone wants to take part. Ungdomsøen should bring together individuals – who would not naturally find each other – in new, committed communities.

Island – mainland: Ungdomsøen is not just something we play at. It should create change that can be felt beyond its physical boundaries. So you do not need to be at Ungdomsøen to do youth island activities.

Med støtte fra

Ungdomsøen is made possible by the trust and support of a number of foundations and municipalities, which enable us to be a platform for young people's projects, events and communities.

Københavns Kommune med off white baggrund

Det Obelske Familiefond med off white baggrund

Velliv Foreningen med off white baggrund

Partnerskaber

Ungdomsøen works with a wide range of organisations and movements that help create the platform with events, projects and experiences in collaboration with us.

Core partners

The Scouts

59840154 10157701699244769 5893572450196652032 n

The folk high schools

19420513 1388699767831768 7848312473114135710 n

Roskilde Festival

The Danish Youth Council

The Scouts

Spejderne (The Danish Scouts) is a children's and youth movement with more than 70,000 members, formed in 2015 and representing the five Danish scout associations: Det Danske Spejderkorps, KFUM-Spejderne, De grønne pigespejdere, Danske Baptisters Spejderkorps and Dansk Spejderkorps Sydslesvig.

It was a group of young scouts who originally came up with the idea of buying Ungdomsøen and turning it into a youth island. The Scouts are therefore one of Ungdomsøen's core partners and helped bring the Ungdomsøen project to life in its early days – both with the renovation of the fort and with developing the dogmas and vision for the youth project.

Today we work with the Spejderne association and the individual scout associations on, among other things, annual scout days at Ungdomsøen.

The folk high schools

The Association of Folk High Schools in Denmark (FFD) works for the idea of the folk high school and to create good and free conditions for the development of this type of school.

The folk high schools' core value of 'democratic education' and their general commitment to giving young people a voice and the opportunity to be active in society fit well with Ungdomsøen's vision.

Ungdomsøen aims to be a democratic platform where young people meet across geographical and social divides. Together we have, for example, held a youth summit for 200 young people at Ungdomsøen in connection with the European Parliament elections in May 2019. Under the heading 'Young Europe is Voting', FFD, together with 10 folk high schools and Nyt Europa, organised a youth summit that brought together 100 young Europeans and 100 folk high school students for a weekend focused on starting a dialogue with politicians, so that young people's voices became part of the debate ahead of the election.

The chair of the Ungdomsøen board, Lisbeth Trinskjær, is also chair of the Association of Folk High Schools in Denmark.

Roskilde Festival

Roskilde Festival is the largest festival in Northern Europe. When the festival kicks off, around 30,000 volunteers help with safety in the camping area, build the stages, staff the stalls and much, much more. Besides the event itself, the purpose of the Roskilde Festival association is to support initiatives for children and young people as well as humanitarian and cultural organisations.

In the first months after Ungdomsøen was bought in 2015, the vision and dogmas for Ungdomsøen were created partly through workshops in the camping area and with input from young people at Roskilde Festival.

The collaboration between Ungdomsøen and Roskilde Festival is about creating a foundation and a playground for creative young people and their activities at Ungdomsøen. In 2020, for example, Roskilde Festival donated part of its surplus to the organisation Rapolitics so they could hold the Re:ACT festival at Ungdomsøen in 2021.

The Danish Youth Council

The Danish Youth Council (DUF) is an umbrella and interest organisation for 80 socially engaged children's and youth organisations. Scouts, student organisations, church associations, environmental organisations, social organisations and political youth organisations are among its members.

The collaboration between DUF and Ungdomsøen goes back to before Ungdomsøen opened, when they helped run workshops around the country that gave us young people's input to shape Ungdomsøen's dogmas and vision.

DUF also uses Ungdomsøen for its democratic youth activities. In October 2021, for example, they organised youth training for 60 young people from all the Nordic countries. The focus was on creating closer ties between young people in the Nordic region working with sustainable communities.

Bestyrelse

Fonden Ungdomsøen is responsible for the operation and activities of Ungdomsøen. Our board consists of seven members and a youth observer who is democratically elected by young volunteers at Ungdomsøen.

It is the board's task to make sure that, in particular, the financial and legal framework for Ungdomsøen is in place. But the board does not regulate which activities should take place at Ungdomsøen, because it is precisely the young people in the Ungdomsøen community who create the platform together.

Lisbeth Trinskjær, Chair

Nanna Dahl, Vice Chair

Maria Bruselius-Jensen, Board member

Lars Frelle-Petersen, Board member

Tommy Ahlers, Board member

Michael Aagaard Seeberg, Board member

Lawand Hiwa Namo, Board member

Magnus Strange Herrmann, Youth observer

Lisbeth Trinskjær, Chair

Gender: Female (she/her)

Born: 1969

Position: Chair of the Association of Folk High Schools in Denmark (FFD)

Joined the board: 23 April 2019. Reappointed as chair in 2021 for a 2-year term.
Lisbeth is appointed by the Spejderne association

Management positions: Chair of the Association of Folk High Schools in Denmark, member of the 2030 Panel, member of the Democracy Commission

Competences: Strategic management, advocacy, democratic development and fundraising

Independent/dependent: Independent

Nanna Dahl, Vice Chair

Gender: Female (she/her)

Born: 1989

Position: Experience and Learning Designer, Curator, National Museum of Denmark

Joined the board: 23 April 2019. Reappointed as vice chair in 2021 for a 2-year term.
Nanna is appointed by the Spejderne association

Management positions: None

Competences: Youth involvement, project management, organisational development, play design

Independent/dependent: Independent

Maria Bruselius-Jensen, Board member

Gender: Female (she/her)

Born: 1971

Position: Associate Professor in youth research, youth participation and young people's civic engagement, Aalborg University

Joined the board: 29 May 2024
Maria is appointed by the board

Management positions: Associate Professor

Competences: Leadership, democracy and democratic methods, young people's well-being, youth participation and young people's civic engagement.

Independent/dependent: Independent

Lars Frelle-Petersen, Board member

Gender: Male (he/him)

Born: 1970

Position: Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities

Joined the board: 16 August 2019 and reappointed in 2021.
Lars is appointed by the board

Management positions:

Former chair of the Roskilde Festival association, board member of the IT University of Copenhagen, board member of Healthtech Hub Copenhagen, board member of Copenhagen Fintech, board member of Denmark Bridge, board member of DIBD A/S, board member of the MADE association (Manufacturing Academy of Denmark), vice chair of Design Society.

Competences: Experience with top management, board work, voluntary organisations, strategy, finance and operations

Independent/dependent: Independent

Tommy Ahlers, Board member

Gender: Male (he/him)

Born: 1975

Position: Climate tech investor

Joined the board: 16 August 2019 and reappointed in 2021 for a 2-year term.
Tommy is appointed by the board

Management positions: Minister for Higher Education and Science 2018–2019, Vice President, Citrix 2012–2015, active investor 2010–2018, early investor and CEO of Podio 2010–2012, Head of Location Based Services, Vodafone 2009–2010, CEO of Wayfinder Systems 2009–2010, founder and CEO of ZYB ApS 2005–2009, founder of ZYB Technologies ApS 2004–2005, strategy consultant, McKinsey & Company 2001–2004

Competences: Strategy, finance, law

Independent/dependent: Independent