Eindhovens Dagblad

 

from Eindhovens Dagblad, Holland, 19th January 2002

[in Dutch]     [in German]

Collecting clothes for the benefit of the Third World.  It seems noble work. Nevertheless Humana, originally Danish,  and the Tvind organisation connected with it have been talked about for years. The question is whether all the millions, earned by clothes-collecting, go to the poor people, as Humana says.  Or do they disappear mainly in a worldwide web of foundations, schools, companies, tree plantations and accommodation addresses of the Tvind-empire?

By Han Gommeren

'They give those clothes away, I believe. Isn't it', says Mrs. H. Lentink, just a few steps away from the two white Humana-clothes bins on the Heezerweg in Eindhoven. She regularly drops clothes in them, she says. Bewildered she looks up when she hears that Humana sells the clothes in its shops in Amsterdam and Arnhem and exports through commercial related companies to Eastern Europe and Africa.   For a good cause, says Humana.

Otherwise than the simple boxes make one believe, second hand clothing is a business of millions.  In for example Eindhoven there are fourty  Humana-bins in which in the year 2000 disappeared 875.000 kilograms of clothes. This is peanuts. Humana claims it collects ten million kilograms of clothes in Holland  (commercial prize 0,45 euro each kilogram) every year. Humana collects clothes in eleven European countries, but also in the United States and Canada

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The worldwide-working Humana originally started in Denmark.  In 1970 a group of hippies under the leadership of  teacher Amdi Petersen started a free school in the Danish village of Tvind because of dissatisfaction with the excisting education. 'Tvind' was the name of the movement. Petersen quickly found followers and the number of schools grew correspondingly rapidly.

That happened with a lot of support from the government, because the Danish government is very big-hearted with subsidy to free schools. In 1977 Tvind began Humana.  The subsidised schools went to train mostly young pupils as development-instructors for the Third World. During the mid-eighties Humana started the very profitable collecting of clothes on a big scale in Europe. Meant for, so is said, to finance development projects.

Now, thirty years after the founding of Tvind, founder Amdi Petersen (62) lives in luxury in a penthouse worth 7,9 million euro on the millionaires-paradise Fisher Island near Miami. The charismatic leader of Tvind disappeared in 1979, but was traced  last autumn by journalists from Jyllands Posten, the biggest newspaper in Denmark.

Amdi Petersen didn't just disappar without a reason. The Danish government found out that Tvind used hundreds of millions for other purposes than education. In 1996 the subsidising of the Tvind-schools was stopped. Those subsidies are the groundwork for the Tvind-wealth of today. 'The subsidies have vanished in the Tvind-empire', the Danish minister of Education at that time, Ole Vig Jensen, said.   'It's time to clean up Tvind.'

Those hundreds of millions were just a fraction of the billions which according to the former financial Tvind-genius Henning Bjrnlund are flowing through the empire of schools, foundations, companies and tree-plantations. He bought, so he says, all the tree-plantations on behalf of  Tvind - so to say for development work. 'With all buyings the point of departure was that they had to be profit-making. On the plantations itself there is no development work, it's purely business',  confessed Bjrnlund in 1995 in the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet.

The heart of  Tvind is the Teachers Group, which leads all the schools, companies all over the world and the development projects.  Who enters the Teachers Group, sends in his personal belongings. Every teacher puts his salary in a joint fund in exchange for a roof over one's head and some pocket money. Money, but also time with Tvind is, like in a cult, common property. This means one has no free time.

According to financial senior man Bjornlund, Tvind let the about five hundred members of  the Teachers Group deduct their non-paid-salary from the tax. The money 'given back'  by the tax-office disappeared in the Tvind-web.  Until the Danish government made this trick impossible by a change of the tax-law in 1987. From that moment on Tvind let the teachers put their salary in a common fund in order to pay as little tax as possible, according to Bjornlund. This fund now is being investigated by the Danish police.

The students on behalf of the Tvind-schools are being recruited worldwide by Humana, including  in Holland. The development instructors-to-be have to work in order to pay their education: canvass with cards, working in Humana-shops, clothing sort-centres or other Tvind-companies.  In the town of Groningen the Students Union advised students to ignore an appeal through posters ('you are needed in Africa') in the town from Humana People to People. 'There are to much questions about Humana', says spokeswoman M. Brijder.

The education and the development work of Humana meet a lot of criticism already for years. The European Union pointed out in a report full of criticism that on the Tvind-plantations is a relationship between Tvind and the local workers as from employer to employee. There is no partnership whatsoever. 'And nobody knows when the projects end of are being handed over to the local people.'  Besides that the EU says that the development workers from Humana are 'generally not qualified'.  For this reasons the EU doesn't give any benefit anymore to the projects of Humana.

Former volunteers have complained in the press about 'psychological terror' being practised on them. Also they tell about chaos on the Tvind-schools, where they have to clean, but don't receive any noticeable education. Comparable experiences had a young, twenty year old  Slovakian woman who lives now in Eindhoven and wants to stay anonymous because she's afraid of  retaliation. She was supposed to receive an education as development worker for Africa in Hornsjo in Norway after a meeting at Tvind in Denmark. She signed a contract in which was written that she had to work to pay back her wage - which she only got on paper - and fundraise. Also she had to work to pay the costs of education back - 3400 euro- and thousands of euro for her stay in the school.

'But there was no education whatsoever', the young Slovakian woman tells, still looking rather upset.  In front of her on the table is a postcard from the hotel in which she worked in Hornsjo (near Lillehammer). 'We had to work from the early morning till late in the evening in the ski-hotel of  Tvind. Whenever I got tired and had epileptic attacks, one of the teachers shouted at me that I had to work. I was scared to death.  After some time with some other volunteers I concluded that nothing was fulfilled from what was promised. Humana misuses young people and their idealism for its own gain.'

In many countries in Europe Humana has kicked up dust.  In 1997 in France the judge has banned Humana after serious problems with the tax-office.  A Swedish investigation pointed out that only two percent of the income from Humana was spent  in the third world. In Great-Britain the Charity Commission has removed Humana. After thorough investigation the Charity Commission concluded millions of Humana-money had disappeared in Zimbabwe. It appeared that the government of Zimbabwe had subsidised the projects.

'The Charity Commission never revealed where the money had gone', says English journalist Michael Durham, who has been writing about Tvind in The Guardian and The Times and has put up an investigative website (tvindalert.org.uk). 'All Danish board members were removed and replaced by British. They founded a new organisation: Traid Ltd.' One of the Danish board members was Jytte Nielsen. She is now director of Humana Holland, vice-chairwoman of Humana Austria and an important person in the European Humana organisation.

Chairman Jesper Wohlert of Humana Re-use, one of the two foundations of which Humana Holland up till now exists, was director of the Tvind-company All Europe Satellite Television. Ltd, that closed in 1998.   In this company disappeared then thousands of pounds from the British Humana.

Now the question is: what seems to be the situation at Humana Holland? Director R. van Baaren  says he is sure that the incomes of the clothes gathering in Holland are being used for the projects of Humana in Africa. 'The accountant confirms that the money arrives with DAPP, our sister organisation in Africa.

But there is no control on the allocation of the money. The Dutch equivalent of the Charity Commission, the Central Bureau of Fundraising, neither has the money nor legal competence to do controls in Africa, says director L. van Deth. 'Of course we know that there is al lot of commotion in Europe about Humana. But here in Holland on paper everything is okay.''

Humana nevertheless is working in a very commercial way. It sold millions, or better to say probably tens of millions of kilograms of clothes through the Tvind-company Textile Transformation EC Trading BV. But EC Trading went bankrupt 2000 and for example caused the loss of 1,5 millions guilders to the biggest Dutch clothing sort company, De Boer Groep.

From Humana Holland 500.000 guilders (226.890 euro) disappeared in EC Trading because of the bankruptcy: that money for sure didn't get off to the Third World.   Nevertheless Humana is in business with the first director of EC Trading, the Dane Flemming Gustafsson, who is now the representative of the Tvind-company ConMore BV in Holland and is known as a (former) member of the Teachers Group.

EC Trading went bankrupt mostly because of four defaulting off-shore companies on Jersey. They are, just as EC Trading. being led by three Danish/Swedish directors, mostly the same ladies who are known as members of the Teachers Group,  just like most Danish members of the  board of Humana Holland.

Socialist Member of Parliament P. van Heemst  (PvdA), who already asked questions in 1996 about Tvind/Humana, is brief but clear in his reaction: 'I advise town halls to end the relationship with Humana. Tvind/Humana is a money machine under the pretending of help for the Third World.'

The town hall of Zaanstad has decided - as far as known as the first in Holland - to end the relationship with Humana. Which made Humana furious, its speaks of  'a witch-hunt like in the middle-ages'. 

The alderman for environment and financial affairs in Eindhoven, A. Scherf, doesn't see any reason to re-consider the relationship with Humana. Two requests for an interview he leaves without any answer. When it's up to him the clothing-bins continue standing in Eindhoven.

 

Picture captions:  two photo's of Amdi Petersen: