Hawzah News Agency-Ramadan is underway, meaning that 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide will fast from dawn to sunset every day for the next month.
Ramadan is at different times from year to year, and this year it is in the summer months of June and July. In Scandinavia there are few hours between sunset and dawn these months - which in some cases produce challenges.
The Søndervang School in the Danish city of Aarhus, where 93 per cent of the pupils are bilingual, sees Ramadan as a potential problem for the students.
- We simply cannot have kids who cannot perform their best for an entire month. We discourage parents and children to fast on the basis of a health perspective. Therefore, we take the liberty to give hungry and distressed children food and drinks, should it become necessary, says headmaster of the school, Randi Bødstrup Hørlyck.
At the Selsmoseskolen in Taastrup outside Copenhagen, they do not take into account that Ramadan is on either.
- We cannot redo the school day, and we will not accept that students do not participate in regular activities or do not shower after the gym, says Ellis Andersen, principal of the school.
She tells the newspaper that it is the oldest Muslim pupils at the school who are fasting, but that the younger children misunderstand this and thus believe that they should refrain from eating too.