Press Release from the previous Board of Directors

The Board, which now has been removed by the Civil Directorate, has, throughout the 14 years since the establishment of the Foundation in 1987, carried out 56 Board Meetings. During these meetings it has elaborated applications, evaluated a large amount of reports with attached Project Accounts and decided whether each single project has fulfilled the regulations of the Assessment Committee and the Foundation Regulations of Denmark. Continuously, the Board has consulted the Foundation's Accountant, and been seeking legal opinions and advice from experts within the individual project areas.

The Board has carried out this work with great inthusiasm, and often it has been necessary to gain indepth knowledge into other countries and single local areas. They have possessed the courage and vision necessary in order to enter into projects where success has not been certain, and where big sizes and slowly movable mechanisms have been parts of the consideration, for some projects over a period of years, e.g. in the project with the satellite-TV-channel "The Vocie of the Thrid world", the environmental project Floryl in Brasil, or the AIDS projects in Africa.

The Board has enjoyed a vivid interactivity with the benefactors; the Board has always enthusiastically explained about the projects and the results through pictures, films and reports, and the benefactors have in return put up numerous questions and queried and further inspired the Board to intensify their work.

Until 26th June 2001 the Board included 5 persons

Poul Jørgensen, former principal of folk high school and  teacher training college, Chairma of  Fælleseje.

Bodil Ross Sørensen, former folk high school principal and educational consultant 

Steen Conradsen, former principal in England, teacher and lecturer at The Necesaray Tecaher Training College ( Det Nødvendige Seminarium.)

Finn Tersløv Jørgensen, teacher, windmill constructor, now practical leader of course centre.

Bolette Gunst, teacher, former manager at The Necessary Teacher Training College and educational consultant..

Press Release

On the occasion of the letter from the Danish Civil Directorate of 26th June 2001 where they remove the Board of Directors of the Foundation in Support of Humanitarian purposes, to enhance research and to the protection of the environment, the Foundation would like to put forward the following statement:

During a meeting held on 16th May 2001 at the offices of the Civil Directorate, the Foundation Board asked the Civil Directorate to go through all of the grants given out by the Foundation, in order to ascertain whether its grants actually were within the objectives of the Foundation.

The Foundation made it clear that if the Civil Directorate did not welcome this requirement the Foundation would ask for a writ of subpoena in order to sue the Civil Directorate.

In the letter of 26th June 2001, the Civil Directorate states that they are not interested at this point in time in going through the list of grants as requested by the Foundation. In the same letter the Civil Directorate removes the Board of Directors for the Foundation.

The purpose of removing the Board is, as far as the Foundation is concerned, solely to prevent that the Foundation’s request of going through the list of grants is taken to the courts for investigation.

By removing the Board the Civil Directorate wants to prevent the courts from investigating the legality of the grants in a lawsuit initiated by the Board, in a similar way to the one the state administration and the Danish Parliament used in 1996, where they, without luck, tried to prevent a court case between the Ministry of Education versus the Schools. It must by now be clear that the question whether the grants are actually in full correlation with the Foundation’s written objectives, will not be taken up in court.

It must be added that it is completely untenable that the Civil Directorate is removing a Board as a reaction to the fact that the same Board has supplied the Directorate with the requested materials.

To remove a Board can only take place in the situation where the Board has not delivered the requested materials.

Attention must be given to the fact that the State Court Judge (Kammeradvokaten), on behalf of the Ministry of Education, reported various schools with relation the School cooperation Tvind, where he claims that the schools had committed certain unlawful acts. The Prosecution Authorities found no evidence upon which they could build a law suit.

The decision taken by the Civil Directorate on 26th June 2001 is thus to continue the negative discrimination which the Danish State is performing against institutions and persons who according to the State have any connection with the School cooperation Tvind.

This is against the Supreme Court Ruling which declared that the Discriminational Law of 1996 (Særloven mod Tvind) was against the Danish Constitution.

Ulfborg, 28th June 2001.

The Foundation in Support of Humanitarian purposes, to enhance research and to the protection of the environment.

The Board, (removed by the Civil Directorate decision of 26th June, 2001)