Tvind
Tvind is the informal name of a confederation of private schools, humanitarian organizations, and businesses, founded as an alternative education school in Denmark circa 1970. The organization is controversial in Denmark, where it runs a number of schools primarily for troubled youth. Some former students and employees have described the organization and its controlling body, the Teachers Group, as a political cult.
Investigations by journalists and law-enforcement agencies have suggested the presence of an extensive money-laundering network within the group's commercial and non-profit ventures, wherein charitable funds are diverted to private businesses and individuals, including several of the group's leaders. In 2013, several of Tvind's senior members were sentenced in absentia to prison in Denmark for suspected tax evasion and embezzlement, after an earlier acquittal., the defendants, who are wanted by Interpol, are believed to be hiding in Mexico.
Overview
Following a provision of the Danish constitution that allows any group to form a school and receive government funding, Tvind has founded numerous private schools across Denmark. According to The Copenhagen Post,Over time, the group's financial dealings grew to encompass various non-profit and commercial enterprises such as African AIDS work, South American plantations and second-hand clothing dealers.
Some former members of the group have made allegations that Tvind is run as an authoritarian cult, controlled by an inner circle known as the "Teachers Group". Its purported leader, Mogens Amdi Petersen, born 9 January 1939 in Tønder, had been in hiding since the 1970s and reappeared in 2002 when apprehended on charges of fraud and tax evasion., Petersen and a group of the organization's leaders are facing charges of fraud in Denmark.
History
Tvind was founded by Petersen, then a young, radical idealist. Petersen is said to have collected about 40 followers and established a government-funded alternative school system for troubled youth in Denmark.In 1972 the Tvind base was founded in West Jutland on a plot of farming land called Tvind, where several schools were built as well as a teachers training college. At that time, all of Tvind's schools received public subsidies in accordance with the very liberal education laws in Denmark.
It is located in the countryside near Ulfborg in Western Jutland, Denmark - 12 km from the North Sea.
1970s and 1980s
More 'Tvind Schools' began to emerge and after 25 years more than 30 schools have been established all over Denmark and some abroad. An estimated 40,000 children and adults have attended Tvind Schools since the first school was established in 1970.Tvind soon became a popular center for youth counter culture in the 1970s and 1980s. The world's largest electricity producing turbine, known as Tvindkraft or Tvind Power, was constructed on the school grounds in Tvind in the mid-1970s in a collaboration between volunteers, teachers and students. In 2008, The European Association for Renewable Energy awarded Tvind the European Solar Prize for education, in recognition of the effort of planning and building the turbine in the 1970s.
Tvindkraft has since supplied the energy needed for the schools in Tvind.
The building of Tvindkraft inspired and gave rise to a growing wind turbine industry in Denmark.
Danish government subsidies, Special Act and Danish Supreme Court decision
From 1970 to 1996, the Tvind schools received government financial support and supervision in accordance with Danish laws for private schools. Official support of The Necessary Teacher Training College, Tvind's volunteer training school in Denmark, had ended four years earlier, in 1992.A Special Act passed in 1996 by the Danish Parliament discontinued the official support beginning January 1, 1997. This act prevented the Tvind schools from receiving such support under the general rules, which they otherwise would have been entitled to.
In 1999, the Danish Supreme Court — in a unanimous, 11 judge ruling — set aside the Special Act on the grounds that it had circumvented the Danish Constitution. The controversial decision was the first time in the history of Denmark's Constitution that the Supreme Court had ever discarded an act as being unconstitutional.
Despite the court's ruling, the Tvind schools never regained financial support from the Danish government.
In the schools for children and youngsters the student base was shifted so that the focus was on students who have been subjected to abuse, involved with alcohol abuse or other drug abuse, being from immigrant or refugee families with conflict ridden background or being orphans, etc. Financial support for training and education of such young people are available from the social services of the municipalities in Denmark, which provide the funds for the school fees and boarding fees. Those schools were named "The Small Schools" because of many smaller units with different programs.
Schools
The Travelling Folk High Schools
One type of Tvind institution, the "travelling folk high schools", were created to send teachers and students together to Third World countries with the ambition of improving living standards of the poor. Now collectively known as the "DRH Movement", these schools train volunteers for humanitarian work overseas. Some former DRH Movement students say that even after paying tuition of several thousand dollars, they were required to spend much of their time trying to raise yet more money by what some of them call begging in the streets. Students also complain that the training they received is not recognised by governments or aid agencies.In Denmark, these Folk High Schools are public institutions subsidized and supported by the Ministry of Education.
Special programs were established in the late 1970s and the beginning 1980s for young people from the so-called Frontline States in Southern Africa. The programs emphasized on vocational skills. Students from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique, Angola, Namibia and Guinea Bissau completed such programs.
Necessary Teachers Training College
The Necessary Teachers Training College was established in 1972. The training leads to a diploma in primary and secondary school teaching.The Continuation Schools and the Free Schools
The first Continuation School for students from 14 to 18 years old was established in Tvind in 1974 and was followed by 6 other continuation schools and 6 international continuation schools with government financial support and supervision. The first International Continuation School received financial support from the EU Commission as well. The First Free School for pupils from 7–16 years old was established in 1976 and was followed by 6 other Free Schools, 5 of them boarding schools. These two school types were discontinued after the Government withdrew its financial support from 1997.The Small Schools and The Second Generation School Cooperation
In 1979, the Small Schools started operations. Many of the students have experienced neglect and other difficult circumstances such as physical abuse and parental alcoholism. Many are "runaways". The Small School at Red House near Buxton operated from 1984 to 1998 with local councils paying 700 pounds a week for the school to house troubled youngsters. More than a dozen former pupils have alleged that they were sexually and physically abused at the school and have even provided photographic evidence. A former Tvind head teacher described the English Small Schools as a "money machine" and alleged that Tvind used the schools to funnel money out of the UK to fund the extravagant lifestyles of Tvind's leaders. The English Small Schools were closed by inspectors after a 1997 Charity Commission report exposed the financial malfeasance that was taking place. In 2001 a former student successfully sued his child services department for sending him to a Small School and another abusive children's home.Humana People to People
In 1977, Tvind members founded the International Humana People to People Movement to oversee several self-described humanitarian aid projects in the Third World. In Scandinavia the group is known as "Ulandshjælp fra Folk til Folk". Headquartered in Zimbabwe, Humana People to People claims on its website to be a "network of non-profit aid organizations in Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and Latin America, all working in the field of international solidarity, cooperation and development." Several programmes run by Humana People to People member organisations have been criticised by former volunteers as being ineffective, culturally insensitive, environmentally unsustainable and even abusive toward volunteers. Humana People to People volunteers who are Teachers Group members are forced to donate up to 50% of their salary to fund the Teachers Group calls the "common economy." Humana employees, many of them from vulnerable backgrounds, are told that joining the Teachers Group is the only way to ensure job security. This practice has caused UNICEF to pull all funding from Humana project. High ranking positions within Humana People to People are reserved for Teachers Group members.Tvind has also been linked to the College for International Co-operation and Development, located in Hull, East Yorkshire, England. Part of Tvind's "DRH Movement," this residential college advertises widely on the Internet as providing training for young people wishing to volunteer in Africa. However, many former CICD students have complained about poor teaching, low-grade facilities, and being obliged to work long, unpaid hours collecting and sorting used clothes for commercial companies allegedly owned by Tvind. CICD has hundreds of clothes collection boxes across Northern England.