Accessibility Award 2016

Egmont High School is a college for everyone, but also a college with a special fondness for people with disabilities.

Since it was founded in 1956, as the first school for people with disabilities, the college has worked to create the best foundation for people with a mobility disability.

For Egmont Högskolen, it is about development, learning and overcoming — and especially about community.

For Sonja Mikkelsen, Chair of the Board of the High School, these are the core values of staying at the school:

“That people from very diverse backgrounds come together in a committed community, where life enlightenment, popular enlightenment and democratic formation are always the focus.”

For Ole Lauth, the superintendent of the university, it is also about the fact that through participation in almost anything, students learn to take responsibility and thus learn to make important decisions when it comes to their own lives:

“Students with disabilities and students who act as helpers (assistants) during their free time at the university must learn to make decisions about the common, but also about having a dignified life. A life based on the authority that every human being must learn to master. Solidarity is also a value that students must bring from school.”

When the High School in 1956 accepted the first team of students, it was in an old villa on 4 floors from the 1880s. The widow's seat Holsatia was probably more charming and beautiful than accessible.

Today, the conditions are something completely different. Not only is there room for just over 200 students, there are also fitness facilities, a climbing wall, a hot water pool, a swimming pool and not least a water slide that is accessible to everyone. Of course.

The old villa also laid the seeds for a special relationship between Egmont Højskolen and the Bevica Foundation, since back in the 50s the foundation owned and operated the villa as a holiday and recreation offer for the users of the orthopaedic hospitals.

However, the first superintendent of Egmont High School succeeded in taking over the villa with great support from the Foundation.

“Egmont High School is an absolutely fantastic place that works with almost tireless dedication and with a fair amount of stubbornness to strengthen the prerequisites for independent and independent life for people with mobility disabilities. Totally in line with our value base.

But of course Egmont High School also has a special place in our heart and history, and I am glad that back in the 50s the foundation left the villa to the current superintendent's father. It was a wise decision,” says Torben Svanberg, Chairman of the Board of the Bevica Foundation with a smile.

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Egmont High School

In 1956, Egmont High School was established in buildings acquired from the Society and the Home for the Disabled. The buildings were extremely inaccessible to people in wheelchairs, which is why a new and highly accessible college was inaugurated in 1961. The high school has since been expanded in many stages and today can accommodate 200 students with and without disabilities. The latest initiative is Vandhalla, Denmark's most accessible swimming pool, where in addition to the high school's own students, it is also open to the public. The high school is located in Hou near Odder. Egmont High School is an ordinary folk high school which has a special responsibility towards people with disabilities. The college offers courses of 18 and 24 weeks duration fall and spring. During the summer period, courses of 1 week duration are offered. The school has a permanent staff of approximately 100 people. The university's core values are based on dignity, authority and solidarity. www.egmont-hs.dk.