Who runs IICD Massachusetts?
Jytte Martinussen (headmistress)
Jytte Martinussen is an honest, principled and well-meaning person. But she is a Tvind person through and through, having been a project leader in Africa, Tvind headmistress, treasurer of the Tvind enterprise Planet Aid Inc and on the staff of Fonden E-advice in Denmark before coming to Massachusetts. She is undoubtedly a member of the Teachers Group, indoctrinated into Tvind's command structure and unique financial code, and having worked virtually nowhere else.
Who else is connected to IICD-MASS?
Co-founders: Mikael Norling and Ester Neltrup
Former vice president: Eva Nielsen
|
Humana Alert |
 |
The IICD at Williamstown, MA
IICD Massachusetts is a Tvind school.
This means that while its stated role is to train young people to work as volunteers abroad - which it does, up to a point - it is also a part of the Tvind organisation, and should be considered a part of a large multinational business, tainted by allegations of financial misconduct and cultism.
IICD Massachusetts is one of about 17 DRH colleges around the world today owned and run by the $860 million Tvind empire.
The school is operated by the Tvind Teachers Group. It was founded in around 1986 by Mikael Norling, one of the original members of the Tvind Teachers Group. Norling is notorious in Europe for his praise of the Cambodian communist dictator, Pol Pot.
Locator map
Links
ICD Watch. Critical website for those thinking about joining a program at a Teachers Group school in the USA. It was created by an academic at a US university in around 2002 and provides a detailed analysis of the teaching, philosophy, financial structure and on the ground development work then offered, partly based on comments in the Tvind Alert guestbook. Includes useful alternatives to IICD programmes.
Press reports
Mission Control, by Jay Cheshes (Boston Magazine, October 2000)
In 1970, a group of Danish hippies set out on a mission to save the world. Thirty years later, some of the young acolytes they recruited claim the group has become a cult, amassing riches in the hundreds of millions of dollars under the direction of an elusive and mysterious founder. Now, with recruiting efforts reaching into the United States, ex-members say the mission is no longer to save the world but to conquer it. North American headquarters? Massachusetts.
A complaint to the Attorney General
A complaint to the Attorney General
In 1991, three IICD students made a formal complaint to the Massachusetts Attorney General about the teaching and standards of the college. The complaint covered five areas: Inadequate preparation for work abroad; false advertising; health and safety; questionable ethics, and fundraising.
The students wrote: "As a group, we are bright, creative and well educated people who feel we have been betrayed, misled and manipulated by a group of rigid ideologues......"
The complaint was ignored by the Attorney General's office.
Read the full complaint here
How to Live Your Dream of Volunteering Overseas ... don't
volunteer with IICD!
by Zahara Heckshcher
IICD-MA student, 1987-88
After volunteering with IICD in Williamstown and travelling to Zambia, Zahara Heckscher became a graduate student in international development in Washington DC, and is now a writer and lecturer on international development.... Her best selling book, How to Live Your Dream of volunteering Overseas, includes a section advising students not to volunteer with IICD. Contact: peacepeace@compuserve.com. Read Zahara's story in full
How to Live Your Dream of Volunteering Overseas, by Joseph Collins, Stefano DeZerega and Zahara Heckscher (Penguin, 2002) ISBN 0 14 20.0071 X
The Teachers Group member's story
'Lars', TG member and IICD-MA student, 1994-8
This ex-TG member now lives in Chicago. He wrote: "It took me two years to be able to write this. I haven't been able to deal with all the emotions since I drove off the hill at IICD, Williamstown in the summer of 1998. I just did not want to talk about it or think about it..... It is kind of embarrassing to admit I spent 5 years in a cult...." 'Lars' is a pseudonym. Read the story
Matt's story
IICD-MA student 1989-90
"An authoritarian and 'its-best-not-to-question' mentality was evident. I now characterize IICD as a bunch of Stalinists who were very interested in communal living and decision making as long as we all agreed to what Ester and Mikael had already decided." Read the story
Jane's story
IICD-MA student 1992
I joined IICD between my sophomore and junior years at college and 1992. I was on the "Angola 5" team but as things got increasingly unstable after the elections there, I pushed for us to go to a different DAPP project. IICD gave the impression that switching projects as a group was a possibility, though it never happened. We all banded together in response to the mistreatment, fund-raising nightmares, rumors and newspaper articles getting passed around. Read the story
Chris's story
IICD-MA student, 1991
I joined IICD in Massachusetts in January 1991, and left two weeks later and without my money - about $3,000.....We were to go to Mozambique to plant eucalyptus trees...later, I learned that eucalyptus trees grow fast, but they deplete the soil, and would probably cause more problems than they solved...and I wonder now who got the money from the short-term investment. I left not out of frustration with the program or suspicion, but rather for personal reasons - I learned that I was going to be a father. I took a couple of days to decide what to do, and when I decided to leave the program and stay in the US, I asked for my money back. They refused. I never regretted my decision, but now I am all the more grateful I left when I did.
The Institute for International Co-operation and Development Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA
How does IICD fit in to the Tvind financial empire?
IICD Massachusetts is an integral part of the Tvind financial network of offshore companies:
AS Properties Ltd
The school is owned by AS Properties Ltd. This Delaware-registered company is controlled by Tvind, and is a subisdiary of an offshore company registered in the British tax haven of Jersey, Argyll Smith and Company.
Argyll Smith is itself controlled by the Teachers Group and is well known to Danish police and British charity officials. According to the 2001 Danish police report, Argyll Smith is one of several key Tvind holding companies. It was also the offshore company implicated in alleged corruption discovered by the UK Charity Commission.
The Argyll Smith and Company website describes the company but does not mention that all its properties are occupied by Tvind colleges.
Planet Aid Inc
The school has a close relationship with Planet Aid Inc. Planet Aid is a US not-for-profit controlled by Tvind, ultimately connected to Teachers Group offshore companies selling old clothes to eastern Europe.
IICD students often pay for their places at IICD by giving free labour to Planet Aid, helping collect and sort old clothes.
But how much of Planet Aid's income goes to the Third World? Planet Aid is part of a large family of Teachers Group old-clothes companies worldwide. In Europe, journalists have discovered that the Teachers Group has been operating a financial scam for years, sending only a small proportion of the profits from donated clothes to Africa.
The majority of the profits from inter-company trading have been creamed off to Teachers Group offshore companies. For a clear explanation, read Michael Bjerre's article on Humana Holland in the Danish newspaper, Berlingske Tidende (24th Aug 2002)
Reports on Planet Aid in Canada and the US suggest that a similar financial scam may be operating there today.
Auf Deutsch
