As part of its ongoing Vi Kbh’r campaign (Us Copenhageners), Copenhagen city council has branded over 50 benches with its ‘Oplev forskellighed’ messaging (Experience diversity).
The benches, all painted in striking colours and bearing the URL and the slogan ‘Vi KBH’r taler sammen (Us Copenhageners chat together), are dotted in various city centre locations and are intended to encourage debate between citizens from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
While it’s pretty fanciful to think that two complete strangers will start swapping their life stories because of a bench, it’s still a noble aim. If nothing else, the benches do look pretty awesome.
Here’s some text from the section of the website that’s translated into English:
The goals of the campaign
“Copenhagen should be a whole city, where people live safely together with respect for diversity and fundamental common values such as freedom of speech and expression, democracy and equality.”
(Vision from the Copenhagen Council’s Integration Policy ‘06)
VI KBH’R is a 3-year running campaign and has the following goals:
• To strengthen inclusion and dialogue between the city’s citizens
• To highlight and celebrate the city’s diversity
The campaign will contribute to the prevention of polarization and radicalization in Copenhagen.
Given what I wrote only recently, I feel extremely heartened by initiatives such as these.