A proud history

Reverend Hans Knudsen created Samfundet for vanføre (Society for the crippled) in 1872. 53 years later this led to DHF which was established November 18, 1925.

The establishment was made after decades of important work, all begun by reverend Hans Knudsen and later continued by headmistress Johanne Petersen. Hans Knudsen is seen by many as the founder of the Danish disability movement. Jobs and self-support was the main issues at the founding in 1925 and many years forward. 

The development work has been part of DHF since the 1990’s. It started small-scale with collecting used wheelchairs in Denmark and sending them to Nicaragua etc. Nowadays it has grown to large projects in Honduras, Nicaragua, Ghana, Bolivia, Uganda and Vietnam. All in cooperation with DANIDA, under the Danish ministry of foreign affairs. Find out more about our development work here.