Another kind of School!

Newsletter May 2013

”DNS TVIND”

The Necessary Teacher Training College MAY 2013

Newsletter from The DNS www.dns-tvind.dk Teams www.dns-tvind.dk

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Newsletter May 2013

WHAT IS NEW IN MAY? Picture Galleries Everybody is waiting for Summer Theatre Festival in Tvind, we are in a hurry with preparations.

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Study Weekend in Münster, Francesca DNS2013

Being in the DNS saving up period means that we have to work! Every member of our team is busy with his job, and not just in Tvind – our school center where some of us are working in Denmark, others are out of the country like our four We are full power teammates.. in the garden—nice Read more... weather and a lot to do!

Enjoy pictures from our actions there See more...

The First Exam with the Headline The African Continent, Egle DNS 2012

TCE Project, Egle DNS 2012

A few times a year, The Necessary Teachers Training College´s students and teachers have a big action with the important aim to collect money for the TCE project run by Humana People to People in Zimbabwe. TCE stands

During the bus travel we visited many families. Moroccan families in mountain villages, Mauritanian family in a small town, Senegalese family living in the slums of Dakar, for Total Control of Epidemic … Read more... villagers in Guinea Bissau… Read more...

Learning Bus Mechanics in Danish, Natalya DNS2010

My team (3rd year at DNS) is approaching a period of 6 months during our 4th year where we go to Africa and work in DNS schools. Some the Summer Camp in time ago we got an Tvind! amazing offer from An- Read more... gola – to join the study bus travel … Read more...

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Events We hereby have the pleasure to invite you to Summer Theater and join

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Newsletter May 2013

PICTURE GALLERY

Preparations for Summer Theater

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Newsletter May 2013

PICTURE GALLERY

Our Ecological Garden!

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Newsletter May 2013

Study Weekend in Münster, Francesca DNS2013 Being in the DNS saving up period means that we have to work! Every member of our team is busy with his job, and not just in Tvind – our school center where some of us are working in Denmark, others are out of the country like our four teammates who are working in clothes collection in Münster, Germany. As a momentarily divided team, we cannot share every experience we are doing at the moment, but this time we decided to meet together with our teammates and the three new preparatory weekenders to learn about the DNS/Humana Clothes Collection activity and for sure, to had some good fun together!

We decided to reach our destination by hitch hiking.

Why? Because it is adventurous, cheap and a practical way of travelling. We split in couples and we started Saturday 25 May at 7.00 in the morning.

Every couple of hitch hikers made their strategy to get as fast as possible to the destination. Preparing particular posters or choosing different routes. Some of us

lection jobs, in a practical and theoretical way. We split into groups and some of us drove around Münster to discover new places in where to put clothes containers, others experience directly collecting action, discovering how interesting it can be, learning to separate useful from useless objects, etc.

During the evening, we had an explanation from António about the Clothes Collection "in numbers", and we could see actually how the activity is improving year by year and how productive it is. We talked a lot about the importance of Recycling. The clothes is sorted into many different categories and re-packed in smaller bales for sale. The surplus from this sale supports Humana's social projects. The customers buy the type of product they can sell best, and they often have family members or employees to treat the clothes and sell them in the market places. Also here a surplus is generated and sustains a family.

Finally, after tea and biscuits we told about our hitch hiking stories, and we share some of our saving up experiences; a part of the team had to come back because of some commitments, and the other part had to wait until the next day, to hitch hike back home again. It was a really good opportunity to spend this time together, in a beautiful place, good company learning something new: one of the firsts steps of our 2013 team!

have been more lucky (in spite of the rainy day) than the others, but everyone for sure discover something interesting from this experience!

We met at António's House in Münster, in the night beacuse the hitch hiking took at least 9 hours! After a good meal we prepared the tent camp for sleeping (in spite of the rain, again!) and we planned the activities to do the next day: experiencing and learning about the clothes col-

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Newsletter May 2013

The First Exam with the Headline The African Continent, Egle DNS 2012 When I came back from Africa and our study period began at the college, me and my team mate Kerli decided to write our report under the headline “The Africa Continent” about Women and Education. It was our first exam of One World University and we were excited about it.

Why did we choose that subject: During the bus travel we visited many families. Moroccan families in mountain villages, Mauritanian family in a small town, Senegalese family living in the slums of Dakar, villagers in Guinea Bissau where the men were fishing every day and the women worried to see them again and worried about the catch.

All these women we met, who invited us in, shared some days with us around, cooking on fire and caring for their little ones, all those women with responsibility for many people and yet so limited in possibilities for developing a better situation regarding health, hygiene, nutrition and future for their children.

Our final destination in Africa was a teacher training college run by Humana People to People in Guinea Bissau.

Here I was impressed to see that around half of the students were girls.

It encouraged me to see that. I was thinking that it is a very important way forward for Africa, if girls can get into education, they can gain control over their lives in a complete different way as it is now for most girls in Africa who suffer under the heavy burden of poverty, tradition and discrimination. Teenage pregnancy is a general problem everywhere we came.

There is a proverb that says: “If you educate a boy, you educate one person. If you educate a girl, you educate her whole family”.

Here is a quote from my report. It is clear that during some 500 years of white people´s dominance in Africa, the stigmatization of Africans was strong and supported by Christian religion: “..The Negro’s mind has been brought under the control of his oppressor. The problem of holding the Negro down, therefore, is easily solved.

When you control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about actions.”

In historical times African educational system had many challenges. In colonial period, Europeans brought schooling which was not adjusted to the local people needs.

In more ways, African people lost their identity and selfconfidence and you can say that even today the school systems in many African countries is serving the purpose of “divide and rule” policy.

Education is not reachable for everybody and sometimes the quality is quite low. Most of Africa’s countries curriculum is old-fashioned and too academic and formal. According to my experience in Africa, students often learn by repeating instead of thinking caused by the traditional role of the teacher as being one of power instead of inspiration.

Moreover, there are still many issues connected with the illiteracy especially in rural areas. The issue with people who are illiterate is that big also because of the family traditions. Parents, who are illiterate, do not see the need of sending children to school. In Guinea-Bissau I had a discussion with a fisherman whose children were not going to school as they were helping their father in fishing industry. For the father it is important to pass on the knowledge about fishing to his children and he could not afford paying school fees. During our study travel I have understood that for Africans education brings possibility to take the future in good hands, their own hands.

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Newsletter May 2013

TCE Project, Egle DNS2012

A few times a year, The Necessary Teachers Training College´s students and teachers have a big action with the important aim to collect money for the TCE project run by Humana People to People in Zimbabwe. TCE stands for Total Control of Epidemic and works to defeat AIDS in African countries.

The TCE program started in Zimbabwe and is now working in 10 countries and has reached around 2 million people. TCE is a program in Africa that is fighting the deadly AIDS epidemic which since year 2000 killed more than 50 millions people worldwide. The TCE Field Officers are working in the communities. They go from house to house informing families about how the HIV virus is spreading and how to protect yourself from getting infected. In addition, the TCE workers mobilize people through street actions with posters, songs and speeches. Most of the people who are working in TCE are local volunteers. People from local villages who care about the future and their families, people who are not afraid to talk about it and people who are open minded and want to help their friends and neighbors. TCE promotes usage of condoms and is furthermore distributing condoms and encourage people to talk about HIV

and AIDS for the reason that in local villages and towns they don’t usually speak about it. Therefore this project invites people to be open minded about it and take stand to stop the epidemic.“Only the people can liberate themselves from AIDS – the epidemic” I participated in the TCE collection because I am a DNS student. I assume it is essential to give my hand to earn money for this project as it is one of the big obstacles for the whole region of Southern Africa to develop. 1/3 of the adult population in countries like Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique and Malawi are still HIV positive.

To spread awareness about HIV/AIDS issue in developing countries is essential. During the day, we were fundraising by selling the newspapers and talking to people about the project.

This task - collecting the money - wasn’t so hard, because a lot of people know about this project and know how important it is to support it. What was harder was actually to reach our goals. All of us had estimated our goals in the morning so that we could see if our common goal could be met.

DNS a long with 20 other sister “Tvind Schools” in Denmark are collecting around 100,000 € a year for TCE.

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Newsletter May 2013

Learning Bus Mechanics in Danish, Natalya DNS2010 My team (3rd year at DNS) is approaching a period of 6 months during our 4th year when we go to Africa to work in DNS schools.

Some time ago we got an amazing offer from Angola – to join the study bus travel around the South African countries together with Angolan DNSers.

The funny part is that we can join only if we are bus drivers, which means that suddenly many of us had to get bus driving licenses!

After looking at different options it was decided: 5 of us were going to take a course.

Me and 2 more teammates are now going for very intensive, but good courses at the big educational center in the town nearby – for 6 weeks, every day full time.

I have to say, that my Danish is on a very basic level, where I can understand daily conversations and say simple things, I am also a very inexperienced driver of small car. Oh, yes and on top of that I never had anything to do with mechanics before.

During the first 2 weeks I struggled and I did not understand a thing, but with support of my great teammates and teachers in school, I believed that I could do it if I really wanted.

Breaks and steering systems didn´t look so scary after our teacher explained it to us very slowly and clearly while showing everything on the real bus. We could actually understand it now.

I also got great help from my teammates Marianne and Iveta. After 3 years together, we really know each other well and know where each of us needs some support.

I had never imagined myself becoming a bus driver. A few months ago it sounded like a crazy idea, but here we are – learning about bus regulations and motor parts in Danish!

Already in August the bus trip starts from Angola to nearby countries – Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and again – at the moment it sounds completely crazy and overexciting. Ask me about it again in a few months!

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Newsletter May 2013

EVENTS SUMMER THEATER in Tvind ”It is through the culture we show our humanity” One major event every year is Summer Theater. Our sister “Tvind Schools” – 20 of them around Denmark – are coming together for a 3-day Theater Festival where everybody participates – as actors and actresses, singers, musicians, stage crew, light and sound technicians, cooks, cleaners – and so on. Tvind school center is hosting over 700 youngsters and teachers and have the pleasure to have 50 Development Instructors to help out a whole week before.

This year we´ll watch 9 great performances – from Aladdin and Aida (musical) to Arsenic and Old Lace. We´ll get moved in our senses, we´ll get touched by strong stories and acting, we´ll get good treatment in the breaks and we´ll enjoy Summer and Theater together.

PTG Youth College invites children from 12 to 18 to take part in

SUMMER CAMP in Tvind 2013 If you have younger siblings age 12+ who have no particular program in July, you can invite them to Tvind Summer Camp in weeks 29-30.

There are great out door facilities in Tvind. Trampolins, Climbing Wall, Bon Fire Place, Beach Volley, Sport Hall and bicycles for rides to the beach and we go on excursions: Canoeing, Horse Riding, Sheltering, Fishing and Swimming.

For more information about date, price and practicalities – please contact: annica@tvind.dk

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Newsletter May 2013

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