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MA Thesis 2

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MA Thesis -2 Chapter 3

Chapter 2. Happy Daze at School

Clare Ward is in the most notorious school organisation in Europe, and she loves it. Since the 23-year old, outgoing Scotswoman responded to an advert in The Independent in January, she has had her days packed in Denmark working -as a volunteer with the Asserbohus Efterskole, northwest of Copenhagen. Part of the "Tvind" movement, which has been described as a brainwashing cult, ⁽¹⁾ She has no complaints. "It doesn't feel like work. It's just being with the kids and having fun," she says. ⁽²⁾

Ms Ward has an undefined role in the independent school, teaching English as an assistant. She is only paid pocket money but gets food, lodging and travel for free and says that money--wise she "will be better off after this year". So far she has gone with the school to Poland, Germany and Sweden and a trip to New York is planned for next year.

When she went for an interview at the Small School in Norwich (one of Tvind's two schools in England), Ms Ward was told that the organisation she was about to join had received a lot of bad press. "It is because we are different," they said. She was not told that being "different" had entailed repeated charges of brainwashing, swindling, exploiting cheap, young labour and endangering students' lives. Tvind did not tell her that the Norwegian government has banned them from running major courses at their hotel near Lillehammer, or that the Swedish social services have included Tvind in a brochure urging people to stay away from cults. ⁽³⁾

Neither did she know that the related charity UFF, ("Development Aid from People to People"), which Ms Ward has worked for while on the school, has a very patchy reputation. A damning report from Sweden in 1991 revealed that 98 per cent of its turnover-never left the Tvind system, and both Swedish and Norwegian authorities have cut their grants to UFF. Its British sister organisation, Humana, was last year revealed by The Guardian to having spent 92 per cent of its income on administration costs.⁽⁴⁾

The Guardian and Observer newspapers have since blacklisted the schools from advertising, but Small School staff have persisted. "They have been quite devious," says Nick Heaton of the papers' classified ads department. ⁽⁵⁾ "They tried to slip through the net by changing their name and number. But all the telephone numbers they have given up have been on the computer blacklist." Well, not all. On 16 January, a Small School advert for The Necessary Teacher Training College in Denmark appeared in The Observer. ⁽⁶⁾ Contrary to what the ad and their teachers say, the school does not offer an officially approved teaching degree. ⁽⁷⁾

At Asserbohus, Ms Ward is very impressed with the way the school is organised and run. She has seen nothing of the reported brain-washing or the badly organised and some-times dangerous bus trips. Ms Ward is busy, but happy.

But Anne Ellingsen, a 27-year old Norwegian former Tvind student who is now campaigning against the organisation, is not surprised. "During my first three months at Tvind, you would not be able to get a single negative word out of me. An important part of their ideology is about suppressing criticism, and that includes criticism within yourself." According to her, Ms Ward has already been influenced by "the dangerous cult". Ms Ellingsen claims that even strong and resourceful people are susceptible to their pressure. "It can happen to anyone, even the most intelligent and nice people. It is all about whether they manage to push the right buttons," she says. ⁽⁸⁾

The Tvind organisation is almost 25 years old. Starting out as a socialist alternative to the state school system, it broke new ground in education. The basic idea was to learn through experience - practical work, travel and communal living - rather than reading books and operating within the confines of a classroom. Rejecting bourgeois and capitalist values, the movement was geared towards helping people in the developing world, adopting a revolu-tionary, communist ideology.

Led by the top people in what is called "Laerergruppen" (The Teacher Group), Tvind -these days runs about 50 schools, most of them in Denmark. ⁽⁹⁾ The related UFF/DAPP/Humana charities have branches in 11 countries in Western Europe, collecting and selling second-hand clothes worth millions of pounds every year. ⁽¹⁰⁾ Tvind-funded organisations have invested into shipping and property, for instance in the Caymans, the Caribbean tax haven. ⁽¹¹⁾

Tvind schools have mostly attracted students from Scandinavia. With a string of scandals attached to their activities, however, critics say they are now recruiting volunteers and students from outside Scandinavia because of their waning popularity there. Last time Tvind recruited British people to their organisation, they did not stay long. Afterwards, several of them described the organisation as "a cult". ⁽¹²⁾

A couple of last year's British volunteers, Rachel Ramsay and Ben Williams of Brighton, are still trying to put the Tvind experience behind them. Having worked for UFF in Sweden in March 1993, Ms Ramsay said: "Intending to stay for six months, I left after six weeks. I felt sick, really." ⁽¹³⁾

Like Ms Ward, the couple were recruited through the Small School in Norwich. Ms Ramsay recalls: "They took anyone - anyone willing to go out at a week's notice! It wasn't until we were there we realised why our group was almost solely English. We had been told that England had a better 'tradition of voluntary work', not that government aid had been stopped in most other European Countries and that UFF's reputation was therefore incredibly bad."

Doorstepping for donations, the English volunteers were "verbally attacked" by many Swedish residents, telling them how UFF was blacklisted by authorities and other charities. "Someone else just said they felt sorry for us and told us to find out who we were working for," said one volunteer.

Ms Ramsay and Mr Williams say they spent some time figuring out what was going on. "The rumours we heard seemed so far-fetched at the time, it was hard to know what to believe, but the organisation clearly did their best to isolate us from any outside information. Our mail was often withheld. Our four day Easter 'break' was an organised trip to a Danish Tvind school. We had very little free time, often working a 15 hour day -with almost no food. People became too tired to argue. They bombarded us with 'targets' and 'plans' and tried to make us think of nothing else but the job we were doing. The whole thing was disorganised, amateur-ish. At the time I put it down to incompetence, but now it seems engineered."

Ms Ramsay continued: "Anything we questioned concerning the organisation was attacked or glossed over in not very good English. 'We love Africa' the UFF song cassette proclaimed, and with the charity's profits funding a non-charitable empire of companies from Europe to the Cayman Islands, it is now easy to see why."

"It wasn't long before I realised this was one 'charity' I didnt want to be part of," Ms Ramsay says. 'But I hadn't been 'UFF'ed', as we referred to the organisations brainwash-ing tactics. Our 25-year-old group leader had been working for them all her working life, after being at one of their schools, and UFF had become everything to her, despite the fact that she really wasn't being treated very well at all. Shortly before we arrived, for instance, she had been made to choose between her job and a man she had been living with who had left UFF. Relationships were only acceptable within the organisation. She chose her job. 'It is my family,' she said. She took no holidays, worked with no job description, and went about her work with a fanaticism I found incredible until we went to the first Federation Weekend."

It was reminiscent of a Nazi rally," Ms Ramsay says. "The point of the weekend was to go round Stockholm knocking on doors asking for things for the fleamarket. The evenings were full of 'targets' and 'results' and their translation into potential money raised. There was a lot of clapping, speeches by UFF bigwigs, singing, and videos about the good work -of UFF in Mozambique.

"The group dynamics were frightening. It was like being on the outside of a cult. Our group were largely ignored. On a similar occasion at which the English volunteers asked a lot of direct questions which were responded to really aggressively, everyone was expected to end the evening singing African songs and 'What a Wonderful World'."

Paul Lakin of Stoke Golding, Warwickshire, another British UFF volunteer last year, tells a similar story, independently from Ms Ramsay and Mr Williams.⁽¹⁴⁾ A volunteer worker for UFF in Sweden from 10 March until June 1993, he is not impressed with the organisation. "Many of us were hungry for most of the time. Some of our diet was subsidised by foodstuffs that were well past their sell by date or in the process of decay. The workload did eventually decrease, mainly due to threats by volunteers to refuse to do the work," said Mr Lakin.

"I observed many Danish people, both volunteers and paid employees, working for UFF. They often demonstrated a total dedication and single mindedness in what they were working towards and although appearing to be very supportive to one another demonstrated an unwillingness to acknowledge alternative approaches." "I gave up my role and returned to England after feeling more and more at unease about the philosophy I saw being enacted and feeling less and less reassured by the answers offered to queries. It was a shame that an organisation apparently working towards the ideals of a more just world should do it by exploiting its own workers in such a wasteful manner," says Mr Lakin.

Mr Williams, Mr Lakin and Ms Ramsay confirm stories reported in The-Guardian last year. Pearse Cooke, a 26-year old who took a position on the Juelsminde Friskole in Jutland, discovered that Tvind "had many characteristics of a cult". ⁽¹⁵⁾ Other Britons have reported similar stories, saying there is little leeway for individual thought at Tvind schools.

Their ideology centres on communal living (Tvind schools are all boarding schools), sharing time and money. Since 1972, all members of the Teacher Group have forfeited as much as possible of their income (85 per cent of which is state sponsored) to a central kitty. ⁽¹⁶⁾ This constitutes their "common economy": money for food, clothes and whatever else is distributed from the kitty according to the wishes of the Group. Herein lies the principle of "common time": everyone is responsible for working, cooking, cleaning and being economical. How every individual uses his or her time is a matter for everyone, and will be decided in common meetings. ⁽¹⁷⁾

This is the origin of Tvinds alleged cult status. All decisions are to be taken in a group, including personal ones. According to "defectors", even family relations and your love life are decided upon by the group. Ms Ramsay witnessed one such incident; many more have been reported. ⁽¹⁸⁾ Decisions are supposed to be unanimous and, according to former students and teachers, meetings can go on for hours when someone disagrees.

In practice, the group members are bullied by the leaders until they agree. They also claim there is a special language, using words like "comrades", "take a stand", "the starving millions" etc., and that clapping and singing is employed as a means of mass hypnosis. This is what Ms Ramsay was talking about when she felt she was witnessing "a Nazi rally" and "being on the outside of a cult".

In Scandinavia, countless scandals have led to the establishment of an anti-Tvind organisation. ⁽¹⁹⁾ The group is active in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and has branches in France and Germany. It consists mainly of ex-students who claim to have suffered physically, mentally or economically after staying with Tvind schools or their related charity, UFF/Humana. ⁽¹⁹⁾ One of their most recent members, is Bjorn Andersson, 24, of Lidingo, Sweden. He left the Travelling High School in April, one month before Clare Ward started her stay in Asserbohus. Mr Andersson's story is one of broken promises. ⁽²⁰⁾

"I was unemployed, and found a leaflet at the Job Centre [in Stockholm]. It said: 'Become a solidarity worker'. I decided to join."

One of Mr Anderssons reasons was that he wanted to become a journalist, but was unable to get a place in the Journalism School in Stockholm. "From what they [Tvind] told us in the-preliminary meetings, I thought I would be able to travel and write stories about it and get some experience. They even said we would be able to use video cameras. But nothing was the way we expected. Everything sounded so much nicer in the advertisement."

"The first semester was a parody. We were supposed to learn something, but all we did was cooking and working around the school. We had a few two-hour lectures, but they were really bad. If we wanted to read - for instance about the country we were going to visit - we had to organise it ourselves."

Then the students were supposed to leave the school for about five weeks and make money to finance their trip to Turkey, Pakistan and India. "It was organised by a teacher, but in general we had to do everything ourselves. My friend Martin and I got a very good job - going around Sweden in a car to obtain permissions for UFF to put out second-hand clothes containers. In some boroughs, where UFF have been banned, we were told to ask for permission to have containers put out on private property, which we did."

Not everybody managed to raise as much money as they did. "Many students ran away, they couldn't take the pressure. The teachers had a table showing how much everyone had earned and what the targets were. It all ended in revolt - our teacher was kicked out and we had an emergency meeting with the headmaster."

When Mr Andersson and the others arrived in Turkey, he says they were told to hitchhike through the country. "It seemed like madness, and all the Turks we spoke to said it meant risking our lives. Four of the girls had nasty experiences with aggressive men -they all had to hitch-hike alone." According to Mr Andersson, two students who were caught drinking beer in a local bar, were expelled and had to hitch-hike home. "There had been so many problems that we all decided to quit. But when we returned to the school [in Denmark], the teachers made a last, desperate attempt to make us stay. They greeted us, saying: 'Welcome back to your home!', as if all the problems had never existed:"

"I don't really know what the point of the trip was, apart from seeing Asia. Apparently, last year's class collected 5,000 Kroner, which they planned to give to charity down there. But the money never left the Tvind account"

Money is Mr Andersson's main grudge against Tvind. Having been driving around southern Sweden with his friend Martin, trying to obtain permissions for UFF to put out clothes containers, they had been promised 300 Swedish Kroner (about 30) for each permission. In the end they made some 53,000 Kroner (approximately 5,000) to finance the trip, but: "I know they withheld at least 4,500 Kroner from us, and we got no sensible explanation why they didn't pay us all of it."

The students had signed a contract with the school, stating they worked for Tvind. According to Mr Andersson, they were asked to sign it because working for the school would exempt them from paying tax. But as a result, it was legally difficult for them to claim anything after-wards. He has not got a copy of the contract, because "the teachers always took care of our money and papers for us".

Although Mr Andersson received a government student grant, made 53,000 Kroner during the saving period and raised money by selling flowers for Tvind in Denmark, he was nevertheless broke when he left in April. First, he paid 3,000 Danish Kroner (almost 300) for food and lodging at the boarding school, which "was not heated and with toilets that didn't work. In the saving period we paid our own food and in addition paid rent for an apartment in Stockholm while we worked for UFF. In Denmark, the school supplied a car when we went around selling flowers for them, but we still had to- pay for petrol and mileage - two Kroner (20p) per kilometer. That amounted to quite a lot after a while."

"When it was time to go to India, we also had to pay 16,000 Kroner [about 1,500] for a Carnet de Passage, which is required to take a bus through several countries. The money was raised by us students, and we were supposed to get it back after the trip. Because of the con-tract I signed, it is legally their money. But I earned it!" Having complained to the school sev-eral times, Mr- Andersson recently received a refund for-the money he paid for the Carnet. But he says the school deducted 2,500 DKr from the l6,000 before they refunded the students.

Mr Andersson often found it difficult to discuss money issues with his superiors. "As soon as you start talking to the leaders about money, they become hysterical. When I questioned the practice of us paying for petrol and mileage while selling flowers, the headmaster was furious and asked how I could even raise such a question. We also asked why we had to pay for the teacher to go on the trip in addition to paying for ourselves. 'That's only natural, since she's a teacher and contributes with so many other things', they said."

"When Martin and I were working at UFF [the charity] in Stockholm, we asked one of the employees who the manager for the entire UFF business was. He answered: 'You're not sup-posed to ask questions like that'. UFF and Tvind are formally independent organisations, but they are very closely linked. Either that, or Tvind are extremely nice giving UFF all that free labour."

But Mr Andersson finds Tvind teachers neither nice nor giving. "The teacher who took care of the money has gone to Berlin. So I guess she doesn't give a damn about our money."

Both himself and others in his class have denounced allegations of brainwashing. They were a strong group, and say they never experienced Tvind as a cult. But judging from their experiences, collectivism and group pressure were always ingredients. Mr Andersson: "At Tvind, the group is the most important thing. You are not allowed to be alone or to form couples. Everyone has to discuss everything in common meetings. There was a pressure for all to agree, and the teachers tried to impose their views on us. Even when we all had agreed on something - all of us except the teacher - she managed to get her views through any-way. That happened many times."

Tvind people are target conscious and competent in many ways", says Mr Andersson. "But they have great difficulties in accepting people who do have different opinions. They emphasize the group, but in fact it is very authoritarian. Our headmaster was revered and respected by the teachers and his word was law." When the students arrived, the headmaster was a woman called Anne Larsen. Mr Andersson found her introduction speech to the students strange. "She said: 'If you are couples and you split up, then you have nobody. In a group you can have anyone.' I thought: 'That was a-funny thing to say'."

"There were always suspicions that we were being conned, and we talked about it a lot in our group. But whenever we talked to the teachers about it, they dismissed us by asking questions like: 'Don't you love Tvind?"' Asked what the school taught him, Mr Andersson says: "I learned something from the trip, from seeing a bit of the world. I guess I have developed as a person, and become tougher. But if I were working at the Job Centre, I would not advise any one to go there." What advice would he give to present Tvind students? "Be suspicious of anybody and make sure you don't get conned. But thats difficult. You have to stand up if you disagree, and don't let them change your perceptions."

Not everybody who has left a Tvind school has experienced it as a brainwashing institution. But the Danish psychiatrist Erik Olsen, who works at the mental ward in the regional hospital in Viborg, Denmark, certainly has. Mr Olsen has encountered "somewhere between 10 and 20" cases of mentally run-down former Tvind students. ⁽²¹⁾ "It all started when I heard of a girl who had been extremely badly treated by Tvind. They had sent her hitch-hiking through an African country and she was in terrible shape afterwards."

Attending her court case and hearing Tvind leaders defend themselves, Mr Olsen was even more shocked, and absolutely convinced they were not telling the truth: "I have never in my life seen anyone lie so much and so badly," he says. Dr. Olsen does not want to identify the woman. She is still suffering when the incident is brought up, even years after.

"Since I joined the anti-Tvind movement, I have been in contact with many more ex-students suffering from serious mental strain. They have been brainwashed and become single-minded in a very dubious way and at a young age." Brainwashing is a strong word, but one which the psychiatrist does not hesitate to use in describing what these patients have been through. "They have been subjected to influence which makes them think the same way. This has been achieved by group pressure and by individual influence." As a result, says Mr Olsen, "they are deeply depressed and feel isolated. In some cases it takes years for them to recover."

Some ex-students have been accused by Tvind for making up stories. How can we know they are not lying? The psychiatrist says: "I wouldn't necessarily believe them if they didn't all tell the same story. Their stories are about repression, single-mindedness, being screamed at by everyone at common meetings and being made to feel like a crook. I can understand the mechanisms - being hammered on by everyone." He thinks the Tvind society fits the description of a cult, and advises present students to "make sure they preserve themselves and don't lose their identities".

"And get out before it-happens."

Many have done so, and would urge others to follow suit. Norwegian Ove Johansen, 30, worked for Tvind and UFF -in Norway for three years. He told the Verdens Gang news-paper "We were brainwashed all the way. There is a lot of talk about morality and ethics - you are supposed to be broken down and rebuilt as a new person in a new world. We had to work all the time, more than six hours sleep was prohibited. The same went for contact with the outside, and you were never allowed to be alone. You couldn't just sit down and think for a while. If you did, everyone would jump on you and treat you like a potential defector." ⁽²²⁾

"In many ways it was unreal. At one point we were told to cease all contact with our families and burn all our pictures. This was done for fear of being under surveillance."

Hanne Marit Otterbech, 23, of Stavanger, Norway, is another unhappy ex-student. ⁽²³⁾ In 1992, she went to a Norwegian Court after having been with the Tvind school at Hornsjo near Lillehammer, claiming the stay had caused her serious damage to her health. Some 20 other ex-students backed Hanne Marit in court, testifying that the schools broke down students psychologically. She lost the case, but because of great doubt the school was ordered to pay all expenses. This is a very rare ruling in Norwegian courts. ⁽²⁴⁾

One of the 20 witnesses was Anne Ellingsen, 28, of the Norwegian anti-Tvind movement. During her bus trip to India with The International College (at Tvind, Denmark) in 1982, she fell ill. Ms Ellingsen alleges she was not given any treatment until one of the other students, travelling in a second bus, took her to hospital. She said the teachers accused her of whining and faking, while the hospital doctor in New Delhi was angry that her friend Johnny brought her in so late. Suffering from three tropical diseases, she was too weak even to tell the doctor her name. (25)

For Ms Ellingsen, this has been a double tragedy. Johnny, whom she regards as having saved her life, is now dead. When she left Tvind, Ms Ellingsen could not persuade him to quit too. Although he was angry with Tvind because of what had happened to Ms Ellingsen, he still believed in the organisation. Johnny died in an accident in Morocco in 1988 while travelling with Tvind.

In Denmark, controversy has raged for almost 20 years. Since the mid-Seventies, after an initial wave of good publicity, Tvind has been very controversial. One girl, who was inter-viewed by the Information newspaper in 1979 about her stay in Bustrup Efterskole, said many things which defectors still say in the Nineties: "One learns to shut up at the right moments because, if you don't, it can get very unpleasant. You have to say what the school wants you to, otherwise you get mashed." (26) "It happens in every common meeting. They say that you better damn well agree with us, or we'll run over you. Either you get yelled at for having no views which fit in with the school, or you get yelled at for not taking a stand."

Privacy was also scarce back then: "By rule you should be together with others as much as possible. Just sitting in a room talking is wrong. You're supposed to be in the common room and sing or watch a film or something. All the time. The concept of spare time doesn't really fit into that system," the girl said. "It is all about being comrades and holding hands and talking about our problems and such. And it always ends with them running the students down."

12 years after, Mikkel Plum - a former Tvind student of two years - wrote a feature article in the Jyllandsposten paper. He said: "If you get into conflict with the 'correct policy' [...] you are bullied senseless at the common meeting, until you collapse or run away. They call it friendly criticism. It was like that in 1970 and it is like that today." ⁽²⁷⁾

Finally, a man who was with Tvind right at the start and still has contact with them. Kurt Simonsen was at Tvind for nine months in 1970, and went on a travel course. Since 1985, he has been a thorn in Tvind's side, producing one expose after another as a journalist in the hard-hitting national tabloid Ekstra Bladet.

Thinking back, he says: "It was definitely brainwashing, because it was impossible to disagree. Meetings went on until everyone agreed. But how effective it is, depends on their-abili-ty to whip in their ideology and the Tvind system. ⁽²⁸⁾

"I am happy that I went there, though. Although I despise Tvind now, I had some marvellous experiences. One learns to trust own resources, to believe anything is possible and to just jump into things. But, of course, while some become more self- confident, others fall apart under the system because they simply internalise the ideology and live a lie."

Criticism of Tvind schools extends far beyond Scandinavia and Great Britain. Some of it has even come from people that Tvind claim to love and help - the "oppressed" ones in developing countries. After the independence in Zimbabwe in 1980, the new government gave the returning freedom fighters a sum of money as a reward. It was enough money for them to make a new start - to buy a land plot or get an education. Some 20 of these war veterans took the big step of going all the way to Norway for a two-year course in mechanical farming. They were recruited in Harare, Zimbabwe, by the local DAPP office and invited to a Tvind school in Norway. ⁽²⁹⁾

Arriving in November 1982 at the Travelling High School in Halden, southeast of Oslo, it did not take long before trouble started. The students were given a crash course in housebuilding, and sent out to sell calendars for UFF in the streets of Oslo. The Zimbabweans protested, and secretly taped a crisis meeting they had with the headmaster. He urged them to stay on, saying the government was trying to use them as a means of closing the school down.

The candid tape, which was later played in a TV documentary, also revealed the headmaster threatening the students that they would be thrown out of the country if they quit. As it turned out, the Norwegian government was so embarrassed it gave the 20 Zimbabweans the agricultural education they had believed they would get at Tvind. It cost the Department of Education 6.7 million NKr (about 600,000).

In the aftermath, Tvind spokesperson Poul Jorgensen criticised the students for being selfish. "This is about becoming a solidarity worker, of doing something for one's own country and not just for personal gain," he said in a TV documentary. One of the students, Cosmas Chicoto, said: "I had been a solidarity worker when I joined the revolution - to give my own flesh. I think that's enough."

Asked how selling calendars would help solidarity, Mr Jorgensen said: "Part of the expenses of the education had to be covered by selling calendars for UFF." Mr Chicoto said: "I do not need to sell calendars, why should I sell calendars? I'm wasting my time. I paid my money - to sell calendars for them!?!

Mr Chicoto did get his degree, but not from the Travelling High School. "It was not possible, and will never be possible, to get anything from Tvind," he said. In this case, Tvind did not get very much out of the incident either. The Norwegian Department of Education (KUD) withdrew the Travelling High School's license. Jens Oen of KUD told Danish television there were several reasons why: "The teaching was not good enough and the security - both physically, when travelling, and economic security - was not good enough." In the course of two years, Norwegian embassies had reported 62 incidents of Tvind students travelling abroad, needing some kind of help.

The school was also criticised for registering both with the Norwegian education authorities and City and Guilds in London, who inspect and accredit United Nations- funded education. Already registered with City and Guilds, the school had no right to Norwegian state funding, indeed registering with both was illegal. Jens Oen said: "This practice constitutes swindling with public money."

City and Guilds said they rarely checked educational schemes within the EC which looked trustworthy on the face of it. "We rely entirely upon the honesty and truthfulness of the people completing the form and countersigning it." Their conclusion was: "We have been conned by some very smooth-talking people."

Poul Jorgensen said there was no reason to conclude that the Norwegian government did not want Tvind in their country, and denied that there had been any conflict between Tvind and City and Guilds.

As an organisation which claims to help the poor and oppressed, it would boost their credibility somewhat if their own employees in poor countries used other words than "the new colonialists" to describe them. The fact that a "benevolent" school organisation controls several plantations and companies in the Caribbean has in itself been questioned. Critical voices have crown louder as it has emerged that the people there claim to be exploited by "the Danish colonialists". This has happened on at least two occasions: in Belize in 1992 and in St. Lucia in 1988. In the former incident, one worker-complained: "We have no-rights here." ⁽³⁰⁾

Tvind has also brought controversy to the USA. In 1990, the "Institute for International Cooperation and Development" (IICD) was set up in Massachusetts, and run by Tvind old-timer Mikael Norling. ⁽³¹⁾ Despite his experience from Denmark, before long complaints of an uncanny resemblance to those in Europe were made. ⁽³²⁾ Some 120 students paid $7,700 (about 5,000) to learn Spanish and go to South American aid projects. Having been on a trip to Nicaragua, 10 out of 11 students filed a protest. One of them, Bruce Burke, characterised the school's methods as "psychological manipulation of students based on their feelings of idealism and guilt".

Fellow student Barbara Anns told The Advocate newspaper: "They isolate us up on the hill, they tell us to sacrifice our individual needs and they try too manipulate us through guilt, peer pressure and misinformation." (33) Complaints included low standards of teaching, insufficient food, lodging and transportation during travel periods, and having to hitch-hike through the countryside and beg for money and lodging from the poor people they were supposed to aid. Mikael Norling dismissed all charges brought forward by the students, saying that IICD never advocated any illegal or unethical activity.

At least nine of the 11 who went on the Nicaragua trip, quit after this clash. And with sto-ries like these persistently following Tvind, it may not come as a shock that their schools have lost a few students over the years. In 1993, one third of the students at the Necessary Teachers Training College (DNS-l6) reportedly quit after six months. ⁽³⁴⁾ In Bjorn Andersson's class of 14 at Ulfborg, none came back for another semester after the India over-land. ⁽³⁵⁾ Molly Sterner, who was at Tvind with Mr Andersson, says that in another class two students out of 20 completed the course. ⁽³⁶⁾In Ms Ramsay's group of 14, "most left after six to eight weeks." A possible record was the Travelling High School at Tvind which, in 1981, had 83 out of some 100 students quitting. ⁽³⁷⁾

The teachers are idealistic people, donating nearly all of their time and money to the organisation, but many still defect. Mr Simonsen of Ekstra Bladet estimates that about 1,000 people have been Tvind teachers at some point (most of them in Denmark), and that there are about 500 of them at the moment. ⁽³⁸⁾

On a few occasions, long-timers have left the organisation. Carsten Ringsmose was a Tvind teacher and headmaster of the Travelling High School in Ulfborg for 12 years. As one of the pioneers, he was dismayed at how the Teacher Group reacted to criticism, which started in earnest in 1977. In his letter of resignation in 1982, ⁽³⁹⁾ Mr Ringsmose wrote that they were "dismissing and denying the problems". He also criticised the teachers for having "a strongly manipulative attitude to the students." Mr Ringsmose said the lack of openness at Tvind made a bad situation even worse.

The former headmaster also elaborated on the use of Group Meetings at Tvind. The practice of discussing an issue until the whole group agreed was seen by many people as a "very democratic" form of decision making, he noted. But: "Having viewed this form and its results for years, I have reached the opposite result. The fact that everyone has to agree means in reality that disagreeing is illegitimate. If one declares disagreement, discussion goes on 'until everyone agrees', i.e. until the critics have given in. Afterwards no-one can criticise the decision, because they themselves have taken it."

Another reason why he quit, is the tragedy which happened when one of Tvind's training ships, "Activ", went down in the North Sea and all eight students on board died. The ship, a wreck which had been salvaged from the bottom of the sea, was owned by the Tvind -controlled shipping company, Thomas Brocklebank. When the ship left Dover, England, in December 1981, it was in no condition to handle the North Sea storm which waited. A court of inquiry established that "Activ"'s engine was unable to cope in winds stronger than 12 knots or so. The 27-year-old ship master, the only student who had any boating experience, was informed that the wind at sea would be over 16 knots. ⁽⁴⁰⁾(Tvind Alert editor's note: the Activ sank in 1983; all those who died were members of the Teachers Group - ex-Tvind sources)

After the accident, Mr Ringsmose told Danish papers: "I knew the engine was not strong enough. Poul Jorgensen knew it as well [], but the ship master was not aware of it." Mr Ringsmose said: "The Tvind schools are irresponsible and their leaders lie, distort and keep information secret.-" ⁽⁴¹⁾ A report from the court of inquiry revealed that the crew on board "Activ" had tried to get a Dutch pilot to escort them to Holland, since they were inexperienced sailors and unfamiliar with the North Sea. The pilot had refused, because he thought the journey would be too risky. He was alarmed to see damages in the ship's wooden hull, water-filled cabins and basic equipment such as compass and radar inadequate or missing. ⁽⁴²⁾

Despite the fact that the average age of the crew was 22, that the ship master had a fortnight of-sailing experience and the rest of the crew's education consisted of a five hour test trip the day before they went to sea, Mr Jorgensen described them as a "highly experienced" crew. As if to prove Mr Ringsmose's point about failing to take criticism, he denied any responsibility but blamed the Dutch rescue team for not getting there fast enough.

It was a double scandal, as the Tvind shipping company refused to cover the expenses of bringing the body-of Kristin Skagemo, a Norwegian girl on the ship, home. Tvind forwarded the bill to her family. "We were shocked. It was a second shock," the parents told Norwegian television later. They were not uplifted by the Tvind students who attended the funeral either. They sang marching songs ⁽⁴³⁾

Accidents have also occurred on overland trips. In 1981, Henriette Hansen, a then 13-year-old girl, was maimed while on a UFF project in Zimbabwe. ⁽⁴⁴⁾ Henriette and another volun-teer had to hitch-hike to Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania, a distance of about 1,800 miles. While hitching with a truck, the driver started to grope the other girl. In the struggle that followed she panicked, jumped out of the vehicle and was killed in the fall. The driver lost control of the truck and crashed into a cliff. He died too, leaving the 13-year old Henriette as the only survivor - alive, but maimed. The school did not even pay for her mother to come see her in the hospital while she was in a coma. Six years later, Henriette was awarded more than half a million Danish Kroner (about 50,000) in damages by the Ringkobing City Court.

UFF appealed to a higher instance, but later made an out-of-court settlement with her. ⁽⁴⁵⁾

Hitch-hiking is a well-documented practice at Tvind's trips abroad, and has proved dangerous on more than the above occasion. Already in 1980, the Danish newspaper Extra Bladet reported in a front-page story that four girls had been raped while on a trip to Turkey and Egypt with the Travelling High School. ⁽⁴⁶⁾

Confronting the Tvind leaders with any of the above allegations is not an easy job. Poul Jorgensen is not a talkative man, even though he is the spokesperson for about 50 schools, 500 teachers, several hundred students and children in care, charities operating in 11 European countries and running aid projects in Africa, and, finally, several commercial companies. His numerous responsibilities could have kept him busy answering questions, but that is not the case. Poul Jorgensen does not like questions.

When approached via telephone to his home and office in Ulfborg, Denmark, he says: "I am fed up with wasting my time on journalists, as my answers so often are put in a totally ridicu-lous context." He asked me to send a fax stating who I were, what questions I wanted to ask and how I was going to use the information. I did, but five days later there was still no reply.

When Amdi Petersen and the others started out, Tvind was an exciting Sixties- inspired experiment into communal living, sharing, teaching and helping others. It was founded on the belief that there is more to learn from going out into the world seeing things for yourself, than just reading about it in books.

This is now a highly-regarded educational principle, but Tvind does not get much praise any more. Their five-year Necessary Teachers Training College does not give you a qualified teaching degree, although Tvind officials and advertising says so. The Danish teaching magazine Folkeskolen said last August Tvind were "conning" people into joining the College, cre-ating an impression that one would 1) get an accepted teaching education and 2) not be ripped off. Both assumptions, the magazine said, were wrong. ⁽⁴⁵⁾

"What they really get, is: five years without holidays, 50 Kroner (5) -a week in pocket money, a duty to raise 450,000 Kroner (40,000), a duty to work one year at a Tvind project, and a non-approved teaching education. But this is not made clear to the applicants. Tvind only tell half-truths when you ask what the conditions are." Bjorn Andersson, who quit anoth-er Tvind school over money matters, says his class refused to travel with the College students. "They had acted really weird, and were always telling us what to think, he says."

According to a Small School official, four or five British people are currently studying at the Necessary Teacher Training College. At least Clare Ward escaped that one.

Chapter 3