Gallo Crisis Counseling and Community Center, located in the former Aarhus New Mission Hotel, has been working since 1999 to provide free and accessible help to mentally vulnerable citizens – regardless of diagnosis, age, or life situation. They offer, among other things, talk therapy, social counseling, telephone counseling, and community-building activities.

– Whether it concerns psychiatric treatment or municipal support, our experience is that far too many socially and mentally vulnerable people do not receive the right help in time. This has serious consequences – both for the individual and for their families. Our goal is for this group to live a good and meaningful life within the frameworks given to them, says daily manager Steffan Frydkjær Schaumburg-Müller.

The former Aarhus New Mission Hotel provides the setting for Gallo Crisis Counseling and Community Center.

Guests and not users

Every year, Gallo Crisis Counseling and Community Center is in contact with 500–600 people who receive some form of help. Daily, between 30 and 50 people with complex and difficult challenges come to the community center – people who often struggle to live an everyday life as most of us know it. Here, they meet to talk, share a meal, play games, and plan activities and outings. The offer is open to everyone and does not require any referral or assessment.

– The community center is the heart of the association. It is here that we meet our guests, who come for help and support with what is difficult. They take part in the daily work, and we see how people flourish when they are given responsibility and become an equal part of the community. In the long run, this gives them the energy to tackle some of the heavier issues they carry, says Steffan Frydkjær Schaumburg-Müller.

Daily manager Steffan Frydkjær Schaumburg-Müller is seen here with Jane Holm, who is responsible for the community center.

The funds from Fonden Sol og Strand, represented by Margit and Kjeld, will be used for activities in the community center – including communal meals as well as social and cultural activities both inside and outside the building. This can include trips to the cinema, museums, and nature, creative activities, and celebrations of holidays and birthdays.

– Our goal is to help approximately 200 people each year to a more meaningful everyday life, where they become more self-sufficient and feel less lonely because they have formed relationships. In this way, we reduce the need for psychiatric treatment, hospitalizations, and help from municipal professionals such as coping advisors and caseworkers, he says.

It is not a slip of the tongue that Steffan Frydkjær Schaumburg-Müller refers to the users as "guests." Partly because the building was previously a hotel – but especially because the term emphasizes that they are neither clients nor patients, but just ordinary people.

– We should not be the ones who treat. We should be the ones who create the framework for a good and meaningful life. There is about a year's waiting time for psychiatric treatment in Aarhus, and in the meantime, we can offer help and support. At the same time, we have many psychiatric patients who use our services after being discharged from the hospital – and this helps prevent loneliness because they become part of a community, says Steffan Frydkjær Schaumburg-Müller.

There is much to suggest that Gallo's approach is not only valuable for the individual but also economically beneficial for society.

– Our latest analysis shows that there is a creation of 5.5 kroner in social and societal economic value for every krone invested – among other things by preventing psychiatric hospitalizations and the need for heavier public interventions, explains Steffan Frydkjær Schaumburg-Müller.

Gallo Crisis Counseling and Community Center receives around 12,000 inquiries each year.

The health clinic in Burkina Faso was set to close in February 2022, but Fonden Det Nytter has since been able to cover the operating costs.

Gallo Crisis Counseling & Day Center is a non-profit association, founded in 1999 by former psychiatric chief physician Johannes Nielsen. The association offers free and anonymous conversation therapy, social counseling, telephone counseling, and a day center for socially and mentally vulnerable citizens – without referral or appointment.

Gallo is in contact with 500–600 unique users annually and receives around 12,000 inquiries across its services.

The association is run by about 70 volunteers and 11 employees, primarily in supported and flexible jobs.
An SROI analysis shows that 5.5 DKK in social and societal economic value is created for every 1 DKK invested.