SmilFonden

Supporting children and families.

Text: Michaela Medveďová / Anna Pawlowicz Pics: Pexels

In this month’s issue, we spotlight SmilFonden, a foundation that provides care and community for families with children who have serious diagnoses. We also discuss the activities and help they offer and how you can become a member.

What does SmilFonden do?

Founded in 2014, SmilFonden is a charitable association that supports children with serious and chronic illnesses. It aims to increase their quality of life and create strong communities.

They do this by giving them important breaks with social activities, both inside and outside of the hospital, like summer camps, networking, and counselling.

In the words of Cecilia Demant, Project Leader at SmilFonden, the organisation ‘has a profound and positive impact on Danish society by bringing hope, energy, and joy to many children with serious, chronic diseases and their families’. Cecilia shares that her team’s work provides the children and their families with experiences—both inside and outside of hospitals—that offer strength and encouragement during difficult times. She adds: ‘We know these experiences enhance their mental and emotional well-being’.

Many different diagnoses are represented among SmilFonden’s members - primarily children with complicated surgical diseases and children with rare diseases.

Sisse Fisker, the founder of SmilFonden, got the idea for the foundation when she was hospitalised with her two children who needed operations. She experienced the feelings parents and children go through herself and saw a need for a caring community for families like hers. And today, SmilFonden holds more than 100 activities and events a year!

How can you become a member of SmilFonden?

To become a member of SmilFonden, you can follow one of the two routes to membership.

If your child is a patient of the Paediatric Surgery Department or the Centre for Rare Diseases at Rigshospitalet or Aarhus University Hospital, you can reach out to your lead doctor and ask to be referred to join SmilFonden. The foundation’s team will then call you and speak about the details, and they will likely invite you to the upcoming SmilCamp – an annual get-together for all new SmilFonden families.

Another way to become a member if your child is a patient of the above hospital departments is to contact SmilFonden directly. You can email them at info@smilfonden.dk and include information about your child’s condition and which hospital unit they’re part of, as well as share the contact details with the lead doctor. The SmilFonden team will then assess which activities your child can participate in.

SmilFonden continuously work to expand their partnerships with hospitals across Denmark. If your child is a patient of another hospital department, it’s worth emailing SmilFonden to check if their collaboration with that hospital is already established.

In addition to the membership and network events throughout the year, your child can use SmilFonden’s creative workshops whenever they’re hospitalised or visit the hospital for treatment. Both Rigshospitalet and Aarhus University Hospital have workshop areas that can be visited anytime by both the young patient and their siblings or parents. Other SmilFonden activities are set up in all hospitals in Denmark, which have children’s departments. Visiting SmilFonden facilities can brighten up a hospital day for any child and encourage them to come back to the hospital in the future if they need additional treatments.

How can a SmilFonden membership help?

To highlight SmilFonden’s impact on family life, we had a chance to speak with Cecilie Endrerud, whose son has been a member of the foundation since September 2021. Cecilie shared with us that her favourite part of membership is the fact that SmilFonden creates a community for families like hers, which reduces the feeling of loneliness. When asked about SmilFonden events that Cecilie’s son particularly enjoyed, she says: ‘That’s a hard one. Every event is a blessing. It’s like a pause from everyday life, and we appreciate everything SmilFonden has done for us.’

Can you help?

Since SmilFonden relies on external funding to continue their work, you’re welcome to support their cause with a donation either as a private person, or as a company. To offer a donation, you can follow SmilFonden’s guidelines here. All contributions are used to increase the quality of life for seriously ill children, help give them a break from illness, and support their parents and siblings.