Noel's story

Friday, June 14, 2002

I joined Humana on march 7th 2002, Within a week I was sent to do the net-up program. Originally they told me I was going to Denmark so thats where I bought the plane ticket for, only to be told the day after that I was going to Austria.

I spent two months in Austria living in what could only be described as a shit hole. It was a three room flat with as many as seven people living in at times, they provided us with 50 Euros a week for food but a lot of the time this money did not materialise so I had to go more or less to beg for it.

At the info weekend there is a story that Jorn Balsen tells to nearly all-new Humana sign ups. He tells how he came to join Humana that he was working in a clothes shop bored out of his mind always messing up the clothes so he could fold them again for something to do, and how Humana rescued him from this life of boredom.

 Well I found myself in Vienna doing exactly as Jorn had described so bored that I was knocking clothes off hangers just to hang them again. All the shops I worked in made a healthy profit, how could you not selling second hand clothes you pay nothing for them and then sell for more. Yet two of these shops had not had their rent paid for three months. This work in Vienna was to finance my school fee,

I was heading for the school in China.

I arrived here on the 15th may and was greeted by my team four Chinese girls. Now its ok for us Europeans we have the access to information about Humana and to people who will tell us about all the
shit aspects. Here though Humana is totally new people aren't really aware of the work NGOs in general do so when Humana come telling people that they want to help the poor, its a revelation for many Chinese.

At the moment their school is being heavily promoted around the Yunnan province of China with Chinese students being asked to pay a whopping 12,000 rmb, a lot of money for them. With no option of doing something like net-up or getting a scholarship it all comes from their own pocket. Then you have to ask what does it pay for because as with all DRH schools the education is non-existent. The school has still managed to create a huge hole in its budget with savings having to be made on things like the buying of milk.

I was left with no option but to quit after the letter below which I had written to some friends got into the hands of the chief here. Then I was brought in front of the whole school in a kind of a mock trial were they went through the letter point by point asking me to substantiate what id written all the information is second
hand though got from other people so I couldnt defend what Id written with out dragging others into this circus trial.

Lotte Lunsgard is head of operations of Humana china here in Yuxi. She first came to China 7 years ago. The 7 years she has spent here have all been on the expense account of Humana in that time she has learnt Chinese and also she has been carrying out "research", what that research involved or what she discovered are not public knowledge nor will they ever be. If you ask Lotte about this you'll get a vague look and an evading answer. This is a character trait of hers it is in fact very difficult to get a straight answer about anything from her. But then anyone with any experience of Humana will tell you that this is quite common among those who are members of the Teachers Goup (TG).

The TG is the hardcore of Humana these are the people who are at the operational hub, it is made up of around 500 people mainly African who have little or no say in it, the rest European and the majority of these are Danish women who are the real driving force behind all Humana policy.

So after 5 years of this "research" Lotte started her first Humana project in 2000 here in china, a child aid project situated in Wuding county about 5 hours from yuxi.

The project budget for the first year was 20,000 US dollars this works out at around 200,000 Chinese Yuan. The general aim of a child aid project is to bring education to the children and adults of poor isolated villages as are found in Wuding county. Most of these villages are without schools, to build a school there in a village would cost about 3000 Yuan, so well within Lottes budget for the first year you would think but no school was built in fact nothing visible ever materialized with this money.

For the second year of her project she was again allotted 20,000 dollars, did she do any better?  Well a school was built but not with Humana money with private money of course.  That does not stop Lotte claiming credit for building this school. What, if anything has she done, she has taken clothes, books and pencils to the villages and distributed them.

In 2001 she also employed local people to help set up these schools in existing buildings and get them running which by June of last year they had done.    But as with everything done by Humana the schools where opened without any thought into the consequences of this. So within 4 months all the schools had been closed by the local party committees, this being a dictatorship you cannot just go around setting up schools without first consulting the party.

So this still leaves a massive gap in her budget where was the rest of the money going?   Well we know that Lotte was renting a flat in Kunming, the capital of this province, all through 2001 a flat with four bedrooms that was going completely unused this explains a large chunk of the budget for her Child Aid project.

Also we know that Lotte likes to travel.  In March of this year she disappeared - no  one knew where she was,  even Humana people from Denmark where phoning to  find out her location. When she returned she said she had been promoting the school in Singapore,   but did anyone from Singapore join the school here in Yuxi?  No.

This is the only trip of hers we know about because from October last year there has been a team of development instructors her with Lotte in Yuxi training to go to India. So before October 2001 we don't know how many trips she has taken on Humana money.

So what happened after these schools were closed?  Well nothing until February of this year when James Feeney was sent out here to work on the project and two weeks after him a team of Humana inspectors came from Shanghai to look at what Lotte had been doing. Of course they found the answer to this to be nothing. So if Humana know all about Lottes Chinese adventures as we know they do because James has told them everything why don't they do something about it?  Well, this is where it gets very strange and you start to  realize that maybe all those rumours about Humana being a cult to be true. Criticism is not allowed within the Teachers Group, because a permanent facade of sweetness and light must always be kept up and there is no knowledge of anyone being thrown out of the teachers group. The worst
consequence for gross misconduct seems to be a transfer out of harms way.

So now, May 2002, James is now in charge of the Child Aid project but before he  does anything he has to receive permission from central government in Kunming and the application for this permission is being handled by Lotte. Shes still here and still in general charge of all things Humana in China what she actually does from day to day is a mystery though because she has nothing to do with the school for development instructors and she no longer runs the Child Aid project.

At the moment there is NO Humana project in China even though Im being trained to work on it and Jamess budget to start a project has been cut in quarter so hes scrimping for every penny.  But if you attend a Humana info weekend in Europe you will be told that you can go to China and work on Child aid project.  This is what I was told, at a time when there was no project.

If this is how Humana money is spent in China how is it spent elsewhere and by whom?   It makes you understand why they are so secretive and that they obviously have much more to hide.

There are certain things Humana have which explain where some of there money goes, for instance their headquarters in Zimbabwe which includes a safari park. Now I don't know how much it costs to start a safari park but I bet you could buy a few schools in China for the price.

Lawyers don't come cheap either, especially if youre hiring Robert Shapiro (defended OJ Simpson) to defend one of the members of the teachers group Amdi Peterson who is wanted in Denmark for tax evasion and other financial crimes.

But from what I know of Humanas sources of income which briefly includes second hand clothes shops all over Europe, fruit plantations in South America (believed to be on the large size), furniture factories in china, computer company in Shanghai, fundraising carried out by every Humana volunteer and private donors, you can see that they have a very large income.    So where is it spent?    Well not in China and, from what Ive heard, not in Africa.  Most Humana projects in Africa are funded by other NGOs but still operate under the Humana banner. How much money do they make, who spends it, where do they spend it and on what these are some of the questions I'd like to know the answers to but probably never will
know.

UPDATED JULY 7, 2002

I can also tell that at the school in China now there are four students, all Chinese girls.

There were four other students thats me, an Austrian guy and two Polish people  who started at the school in Oct. 2001.

They were meant to be going to India for the  project there.   During the eight months they were at the school they had a teacher for the first month, then the rest of their team left quickly, followed by the
teacher.

So the school at that time consisted of Lotte, Lily (Chinese woman doing promotion) and the two Poles. So they spent about five months sitting round watching movies and surfing the net. They were supposed to leave for India on the 30th March. It never happened. In typical Humana style they never took into account how difficult it is to get a visa for India when applying in China. So they left at the same time as I did along with the guy from Austria.

So right now at the school there is Zhang Ho (headmaster, non-TG,  Lotte Lunsgard (general manager), Thomas (TG member kind of on holiday I think),  Magiec (promotions, TG), Lily (promotions non-TG), Jimmy (DNS student and teacher for the students at YID).