Lego donates hundreds of millions of kroner to children in conflict areas

Denmark’s wealthiest family shelling out big time for Syrian and Rohingya refugee kids

The Danish toy giant Lego is getting in the Christmas spirit a little earlier this year.

The Lego Foundation has revealed it will donate 650 million kroner to a project that focuses on play and learning involving vulnerable refugee children who have been forced to flee areas of conflict in Syria and Myanmar.

“This partnership marks the first step of the Lego Foundation’s commitment to work within the humanitarian field to support the holistic development of children involving learning through play,” said Thomas Kirk Kristiansen, the chair of the Lego Foundation.

“We hope to inspire other funders, humanitarian forces, world leaders and governments to act and urgently prioritise support for play-based early childhood development for children caught up in humanitarian crises – a vastly overlooked but vital component in the progress of humanitarian aid.”

READ MORE: Lego launches first sustainable bricks

Corporate responsibility 
For over 50 years, the Lego Foundation has donated billions of kroner to aid organisations, including 600 million kroner to the new children’s department at the Copenhagen hospital Rigshospitalet.

According to Lars Engberg-Pedersen, a senior researcher at the Danish Institution for International Studies (DIIS), Lego’s donation is playing a part in helping the UN to reach its global goals.

“There is an international awareness about the business sector increasingly showing interest in solving the problems of the world – locally and globally,” Engberg-Pedersen told DR Nyheder.

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