High School Students Travel to Denmark to Study Danish and VI Connections

Sikre Rejser! (Safe travels)

This Saturday VIMSIA students will embark on the second annual VIMSIA-Gefion Danish exchange program, accompanied by Mr. Ott and Mr. Broomes. This will be VIMSIA’s first major travel abroad program since the start of the pandemic.

Gefion Gymnasium, our partner school, is a world-class public high school located in the center of Copenhagen. Our partners at the school, Kristian Iversen and Bertha Rex Coley, are leading scholars on Danish and Virgin Islands history, with major projects in both Denmark and the Virgin Islands dedicated to scholarship and archival work in this field. Gefion and these partners work at the forefront of Danish society as it tries to understand this history and its legacy, and reconcile its troubled colonial past and relationship to the Virgin Islands. They are part of much larger processes underway in Denmark restoring the dignity of all people to its national curriculums, consciousness, and public spaces.

Student travelers, pictured left to right: Christine Rowe (grade 11), Dallas Broomes (grade 10), Andy Bornn (grade 10), Miles Broomes (grade 10), Sy Sebastian (grade 12).

Our students will spend time with fellow Danish students, scholars, curators, archivists, documentarians, and visual artists. They’ll explore the different ways that Danish society is dealing with this troubled past, and its legacy in the present. Additionally, students will explore what contemporary Danish society and life is like—visiting important sites in and around Copenhagen, seeing Hamlet`s castle, and taking a short trip to Malmo, Sweden. Participants will also attend a half day of classes at Gefion with their student hosts to get the authentic experience of Danish high school students.

Later in January, VIMSIA will host our two colleagues and eleven Danish students for ten days here in St. Thomas, exploring similar themes, histories, and stories. This is truly an amazing learning and growth opportunity for all students and participants in this exchange, and we are grateful and excited to resume the program after being shut down for two years due to the pandemic.

Remember, when you come to VIMSIA you get to see the world! Stay tuned for more updates.