Humana – People to Profit

“People to people” is their slogan. And considering the accusation of Humana being a cult, this slogan gets a slightly different sound. While you think you post your old clothes to charity when donating them to the Humana box, you might actually support a fraudulent cult that exploits both volunteers and people in development countries.

According to Tvind Alert, a Humana critical site, “it’s pyramidal structure, strict heirarchy, all-powerful leader, millennial goals, secretive nature and hostility to outsiders all match classic descriptions of a cult. Under the name ‘Tvind’ or ‘Humana’, it is listed as a cult by the French and Belgian governments and many cult watchdog groups around the world.” The organization also operates under the names “Planet Aid” and “Gaia”.

Peterson, founder of the organisation, has been disappeared for 22 years, and catched by the FBI while living in a Humana funded billionaire’s house near Miami. After courts in Denmark, he’s on the run again and since Jaunary 2009 on the list of Interpol.

The clothing collection is a profitable business. While the textiles are collected for free, the best pieces are sold in second hand stores, and the rest shipped to Africa to sell on the local markets. According to some specialists, the dumping of second hand clothing in developing countries has had a crushing effect on local economies. This is not a Humana problem alone, also more credible NGO’s have been involved in this process. Also, specialists don’t have one standing point there and some still state that sending clothing as aid works.

So, what to do with your next clothing dump? I suggest: organize a clothes swapping party. It’s much fun and you know where your clothes go. And with the rest? Also an NGO label on the container doesn’t give you any guarantee that your clothes are not gonna be sold on a profitable base. In Germany, the organization FairWertung informs about credible organizations and which containers to trust. In the future, I hope I can just bring my old clothes to the nearby climateneutral cradle-to-cradle machine and get fresh underwear out on demand. But yeah, until then we have to cradle to cradle with our bare hands…

also see: Kirstin Brodde, Korrekteklamotten, Sebastian Backhaus