– I do it so that children will have some good memories, have something to live on and have something to tell when they return to school. That’s what Lise Lund says, before taking a short break. – I am moved by it, because it is so important to me, she says with tears in her throat. Lise Lund says she is passionate about children’s upbringing. Photo: Maria Kommandantvold / news Lund is the administrator of the Facebook group “Free holiday rental for families with children”. Families who want to borrow cabins, and people who want to lend their cabin, can join. Lund got the idea for the group because she herself needed help. – I have been in the situation myself. Newly divorced, started company, children. I couldn’t afford a holiday, but the fact that I had a slightly dilapidated cabin was the saving grace. We got some nice holiday memories. But the cabin is empty for large parts of the year. I thought that others could make use of it, she explains and adds: – From this summer there has been enormous progress. We have gained many thousands of new members. For a long time we had 2–3,000 members, now we are up to 8,000. More families with children need help Both Unicef and the Red Cross can say that it will be more difficult financially for more people to fill their holidays with content this year. According to a survey YouGov did for Unicef before the summer, 9 percent of families with children answered that they dreaded the summer holidays to a large extent. The figure increases to 17 per cent in the group with the lowest household income. – Unfortunately, there are more applicants for cabins than there are cabin owners. I hope those who will not be using the cabin during the autumn holidays take a look at the group and see if there are any friends or mutual friends who could need a cabin, explains Lund. The group on Facebook has over 8,200 members. Photo: Screenshot Facebook She says that when she started the group in 2014, many people saw it as shameful to ask for help if you were poor, but that it is now less shameful because it applies to so many. – I get quite a few sad stories. It has been quite intense to stand around sometimes, because you wish you could help much more than you can. Rents out the cabin herself in the summer She herself has a key box standing by the cabin, where one family after another locks themselves in during the summer. – I don’t use the cabin in the summer myself. I have received drawings from children where they have drawn their best holiday memory from my cabin. It’s touching, she says. Lund explains that although she has not been exploited, she cannot guarantee that people will not try to exploit the system. She advises those who lend their cabin to check their Facebook profile to see if they have mutual friends, or do a small background check. – If you have been on a trip to the south this winter, it may not be the ones who are going to borrow the cabin, says Lund. She says that they want more people who have cabins available for lending to get in touch. They have to count on a large influx in their inbox from people who need help, but also a good feeling of having helped. – People are grateful. They are incredibly grateful when they get to borrow a cabin. And those who have borrowed my cabin have taken good care of it, says Lund.
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Helping families with children with free loans of cabins: – Enormous demand
