"I would never ever recommend this school to anyone,
not even to my worst enemy...."

'Kara's story' 2003-5, received March 2007:

It took me now two whole years to write this down,… Actually the reason why I m doing this in these days is, because I struggled towards your homepage, and saw I'm not the only one writing it down, what we experienced.

I'm going to start my story with my experiences in Tvind, Denmark. I enrolled for the program in the beginning of October 2003, where they invited me for an information weekend in Denmark in the end of the months. Since I didn't have that amount of money, which they asked for enrolment fee for the school up in Norway I asked for a internship position to work for it.

So, I went for the information weekend and right afterwards to Tvind, Ulfborg in Denmark to work there for the following 3 months.

The information weekend was very exciting and promised a lot to all of these young people sitting next to me. I m sure that most of them enrolled to the program after that meeting.

When I arrived at the school area of Tvind I got welcomed by a lot of children in the ages between 14 and 18 years. These three months were kind of nightmare to me. Teachers there aren't trained to do this kind of job. Tvind should be a school, which helps children with difficulties or with a bad background. And they really do have horrible backgrounds…

The point, which disappointed me most was, that those “teachers” didn't even care about the stories of the children, or why they have got difficulties. The children told me a lot, and that makes me so sure to say, that they are on the worst place of earth to help them.

Further on it was horrifying me what they told me about the teachers as well as the situation there in Tvind itself. And of course you could tell me now, these are only kids and they are telling a lot. Well, I saw it with my eyes… and this isn't the way of treating children. Still, I also think that people living in Denmark are behaving wrong towards the children. They really do hate Tvind, and whatever is situated or living there. I think that they never should forget about the fact, that those children didn't decide it on their own to attend this school.

They also abuse this school kids, or at least you can call it “mistreat” them. For example, there was this one child, who protected his computer to be destroyed by a teacher (actually the headmaster), and because of that he got punished not to join the schools group to go on skiing-holidays. They sent the boy up to the school in Norway for whole 2 weeks, where he spent the time alone. I brought him up there, and while sitting in the car, driving in direction airport, he got really hysteric and angry. He really wanted to jump out the driving car. We stopped and I talked to him, because I really felt sorry for him and at least I wanted to give him good advices for these 14 days. These teachers told him, without kidding, that he is going to be brought to a mental hospital. (To explain, this child already spent time there, and it was the place he was most frightened of) The headmaster told me not to let him call his mother. I wonder why, guess because she did something she wasn't allowed to. Anyway, of course I let him phone his mother.

Can you imagine what kind of stress these children are going through?

Well, after that weekend I left Tvind. That was enough. This kind of thing I didn't want to support.

I spent the week back home and encouraged me for the school up in Norway , where I was going to spend the following 6 months.

About the school I only can say that it was an old building, which really left the impression on me to break down soon. We had to construct rooms for the following teams, so they didn't even want to spend money on proper workers.

It's a huge building so one part of it got used as a hotel. In general this school is only after money. They just try to get money out of just everything. Of course we were the best option for gaining money. They sent us out of school for a total amount of time of 3 months of the whole 6 months program duration. In 3 months we should have gotten trained in what we were going to do in Africa and the rest we were abused to raise money for them.

Fundraising was similar to begging there. Of course you couldn't tell the truth to these people there on the street. No one would give money to you, if you would tell them that it is staying with the school and only helps you to go to Africa, since we weren't allowed to leave for Africa before we didn't raise a total amount of NOK 45.000,- each.

With that I really want to thank all the people, who helped and supported us.

We didn't get money for our stay there in these cities whether for travelling there, so had we to hitchhike from Norway to Sweden, in every condition of weather.

We also had to search for free accommodation in those cities. In general we were worse than beggars. We slept in churches or in cellars or wherever, sometimes even on the train stations. We had to beg for free food and every support we could get.

Once again, I really want to thank all these wonderful people out there in world, who helped us and supported us.

The rest of the time up in Norway we tried to train ourselves for the time in Africa . Since we were meant to leave for Mozambique we had to learn Portuguese and all about the country itself. People, Illnesses as well as the work we should do there.

In general I do think that we got more than only abused. They didn't abuse only us, but also our dream, which made our whole team similar to each other.

The dream of going to Africa and change some things there.

Also for me Africa was a good experience I do think that people down there are like the slaves for this organisation. It all depends on how you use the time there. Actually you can not do anything, except of you are really a very motivated person, also going against the rules and giving just everything what is left, after these 6 months up in Norway .

I managed my time there quite well, even if it was very exhausting. I had 6 times malaria, and no time for resting. They expect you to come to work even if you are sick. I had to show up at my project even being on quinine and not feeling well.

In the end I returned back to Europe sick. I needed to go to hospital for more than 1 ½ months. I suffered of Malaria as well as Dengue Fever and almost died of that.

My kidneys as well as my lungs failed and it took me quite a while to recover again.

They don't care about people, because after 2 months after I arrived back home of hospital finally I still had to fight with the school in Norway, who s going to pay for the stay at the hospital up in Norway. Imagine, they didn't even want to waste money on that. I wonder what they would have done if I really would have died, what the doctors actually expected.

I would never ever recommend this school to anyone, not even to my worst enemy.

No one deserves such a treatment neither such an abuse.

'Kara' is not the writer's real name