Garnering support

Jakob Sande in a festive company. When cancer hit him for the second time, he held up in his robust manner as usual. He was convinced of becoming a part of that tiny percentage of people who make it through the medical treatment he was receiving during his last days. It was not meant to be. Bjergene lost the battle against cancer in 2009. The architect Olav Hovland visited him daily during his last days. Founder and organizer Tom Gresvig and Ivar LundMathiesen came on several visits from Oslo. The present-day Director of Development Arne Osland recounts how Bjergene, all the way up to his last day, continued thinking actively about the future of the Haugland businesses. During his last days he often engaged in conversation with his good helpers. And they were plentiful -in Sunnfjord and the world over. One person put it this way: Bjergene was a true fairy tale character who could “look back at the kingdom he had created on the other side of the hill”. It is this legacy that his followers at Haugland gratefully carry on.

Utgreiingsleiar Ivar Lund-Mathiesen

Before becoming the Planner-in-Charge for a Nordic UWC, Ivar Lund-Mathisen worked to improve the condition for UWC-students. – It was common practice when establishing UWC Colleges to plan the construction of the buildings first and consider the costs later.

The retired IB-teacher Ivar Lund-Mathiesen looks back to the time when he worked more than full time as Organizing Leader for the Nordic UWC. The year was 1987 and both he and his wife, Jane LundMathiesen, moved from Atlantic College to Norway to fulfill the assignment: – We started off with the running costs. We had glimpsed a possibility to get institutions with capital as well as certain individuals to contribute with a one-off amount to build the facilities. In that way a project can end up with all buildings yet lacking the funds to operate. That is why I gathered key figures from Atlantic College and Pearson College and so on, tallying the costs for each student, teacher,

maintenance, administration, and other operations. Initially, we set up a model with 200 students whom we had agreed upon, alongside 25 lecturers, and ended up with a sum for the scholarships. The next step was to try to cover the costs. At first, we turned to the Nordic countries. We traveled around with our pitch.

Te Nordic Region, actually – Thus, we got a promising letter from Sweden, says Lund-Mathiesen with a laugh. “We should frame this letter and put it up on the wall.”

But then the team suffered a hard blow when Finland- after the fall of the Soviet Union- was forced due to a failing economy to pull back their government support for RCN. To get Denmark on board was a story in and of itself too. Having met the Danish politicians, LundMathiesen got the impression that they were slow to act. The letters from the project group got stuck in the bureaucracy. Governments came and went. How long was the project group expected to nag and whine about their letters?

– At times it felt like a Sisyphus-job, says LundMathiesen. It almost led to them dropping the whole common Nordic idea and to instead, adopt it as a Norwegian-Swedish project.

Rektor John Lawrenson and his wife Nicky on a journey across the mountains.

– But then we got wind of the Royal Couple’s planned visit to Denmark. At this point the then Crown Princess was well informed about the project. We were asked if there was anything she could help us with. That’s when I explained that we had sent a request to Denmark and were hoping for a positive reply. The Crown Princess then traveled to Denmark and got to sit with the Minister of Education at one of the arrangements. She told him about her commitment to this project. A few days later, we received a letter from Denmark. The Danish support was a done deal; the school had once again been saved.

A catch in Åland During the years 1987-1988 Lund-Mathiesen coordinated his work from his office in Oslo while at the same time traveling to Sogn & Fjordane to organize the location and contents of the college. Parallel to this, he tried to establish a contact group in what they had defined as the eight Nordic countries. In addition to Norway, the school now had Denmark and Sweden’s support. In Finland, the support came from the big cultural funds. But what of the smaller Nordic countries and self-governing bodies? LundMathiesen looked up somebody with contacts in

The academic buildings facing the fjord.

In Iceland it was the then-president, Vigdis Finnbogadottir who was a great help Åland. He found one of his earlier students from Finland who gave him several people from Åland, the daughter of a politician. And that is how LundMathiesen contacted the wise Land Counsellor Gunnevi Nordmann. that the, both he and Ferdinand Otto Kaltenborn traveled to Åland and were welcomed by Nordmann and other important politicians. It ended with the Landscape Board promising scholarship funds for the students from Åland – a promise they have kept to this day. – They appreciated being included on the same terms as the other Nordic countries.

Second try: Greenland and Iceland The next region was Greenland: who could put them in contact with the Greenlanders? Lund-Mathiesen remembered a Norwegian AC-student with a Danish father. He met up with the father who was busy encoding the Greenlandic law and working with integrating the Inuit laws with the Danish law. The man was tracked down and asked to help getting into contact with a powerful person on Greenland. That is how they contacted Ingmar Egede, who had worked as Rektor at the Greenlandic College for Teacher Training, but now lived in Denmark. Egede

joined them on a trip across the ocean. In a DC-10 aircraft they flew to Søndre Strømfjord, with Greenland’s largest runway. Here the group got stuck for some days due to the weather and then traveled on to Nuuk. Once he arrived in the capital Lund- Mathiesen got a half hour meeting with the Minister and was promised a stipend from Greenland and, as a bonus, an annual Greenland stipend to Lester B. Pearson College in Canada. In Iceland it was the then-president, Vigdis Finnbogadottir who was a great help. Ferdinand Otto Kaltenborn had a contact who knew Vigdis. With the assistance of Professor Edvard, who had helped educate most of Iceland’s special needs’ teachers - the fund established a Support Committee in Iceland.

At this point there was broad support across the board from all Nordic countries. But in 1990 the one government that was first to promise support, namely Norway, had fallen silent. Late in autumn that year the project group sat in the government quarters waiting for an appointment with the Chief of Agency, who was preparing the case for Minister of Education Einar Steensnæs’.10

– Then a lady with a trolley pass us and disappear further down the hallway. We see a yellow post-it fall to the floor. We pick it up. It reads: “Lahnstein called yesterday. The government will fall on Thursday”. This was referring to the government of Jan P. Syse, which stepped down in November 1990 before Gro Harlem Brundtland’s third government took over. Maybe the right time for working with change was after the governmental crisis? The married couple Lund-Mathiesen worked hard in Oslo, in the Nordic region and of course locally in Fjaler. And there in Fjaler, Magne Bjergene offered his help.

– We opened our homes for each other. There followed long evening talks. Magne would not relent, despite bureaucratic and political hurdles. There were personal challenges too. Jane and I never knew if we would have a paid job next January. The state budget was granted during the last days before Christmas.An unexpected bill of six million

In Haugland work was underway to create a West-Norwegian Health Sports Center which later became the Red Cross Haugland Rehabilitation Center. The Haugland Center needed supporters too. The synergy effect caused by placing a UWC at

The Haugland bay seen from above.

10 Einar Steensnæs was the Minister of Education for the Bondevik government. He would hold that position for two periods as a director for the bard of UWC RKN. .