When the Egmont Foundation sends a letter
In two years, nine young people will join the adult ranks. They are the first to have taken part in the three-year Hilltop youth program for young autists. The school gives young people tools enabling them to be active in the labor market or take a supplementary continuing education program. The project originators had abandoned the idea because no-one would support the groundwork required to realize such an initiative But then a letter arrived from the Aid and Grants Administration of the Egmont Foundation along with a DKK 900,000 donation.
It is lunchtime in the town of Skive in northern Jutland. A flock of boisterous teenagers are eating in the local grill bar. Their cell phones beep incessantly with text messages and the sound of their banter comes in blasts.
About 500 meters away another group of teenagers is eating. The menu is salmon lasagna with salad. But the text beeps are eerily absent and the conversation is more subdued. These teenagers are eating in the dining room at Hilltop, an education program for young autists. And they dislike unstructured noise.
Although many of the students are only 16, they have experienced more failure in their young lives at kindergarten and school than most people. Hilltop is a ray of sunshine in their lives. They meet other young people with the same problems and get a chance to acquire academic skills without the denigrating eyes of others on them.
A good initiative
For some years the association Autism Denmark had dreamed about creating a place that could give young autists a stepping stone to adult life. The idea was conceived in cooperation with an existing primary school for autistic children.
“I could see there was a need. And I got stubborn. We would have done this even if it meant starting out with a tent and three students. Because for many of these young people the alternative is an occupational therapy program where they carry out various routine tasks. And baking biscuits in a bakery is terribly demotivating for a 17-year-old keen about quantum mechanics,” says Jeppe Østergaard Hansen, principal of the Hilltop center. Two years ago he joined the project as daily project manager. He holds a degree in philosophy but, after working with autistic children for several years, he could help realize the dream of creating an education program for young autistic people with normal intelligence.
Support from the Egmont Foundation
As usually happens when local people are passionately committed to a cause, good projects never make it past the drawing board. Lack of funds, insufficient time and inability to provide the right conditions for all the well-intentioned initiatives are usually enough to kill the good ideas. So it was with Hilltop.
“We knew we’d have to put in a lot of work to realize our idea. Starting a new school in Denmark is not easy, and particularly an independent institution for children with special needs. Unfortunately there weren’t really any foundations that wanted to support us during the early stages, so the idea came to nothing,” Jeppe Østergaard Hansen explains.
Many Danish foundations would rather support established projects that already have a certain guarantee of success. This makes it extra difficult to build something completely from scratch.
“But the letter from the Egmont Foundation meant that I and the rest of the initiative group could devote all our time to getting the million-kroner project together. Our total budget was almost DKK 24 million, and the donation from the Egmont Foundation gave me seven months to raise the money, get all the necessary public approvals and then hire teachers – plus find lots of suitable students,” recalls Jeppe Østergaard Hansen.
From drawing board to reality
As Skive already has a local primary school for autistic children and the local authority is aware of the problem, the town was an obvious location for the school. On 1 August 2007, the first nine students moved into the new school. “In theory, we had a plan on the drawing board but nothing at all tangible. We were anxious to see whether we could
achieve our goal – whether the idea was right,” says Jeppe Østergaard Hansen.
From the beginning, as the school’s principal, he has met teary-eyed parents describing how they have waited 10 years for a place like Hilltop. He has also met young people who have found a haven after constantly changing schools, being bullied and made to feel like failures throughout their young lives.
November 2008
About 500 meters away another group of teenagers is eating. The menu is salmon lasagna with salad. But the text beeps are eerily absent and the conversation is more subdued. These teenagers are eating in the dining room at Hilltop, an education program for young autists. And they dislike unstructured noise.
Although many of the students are only 16, they have experienced more failure in their young lives at kindergarten and school than most people. Hilltop is a ray of sunshine in their lives. They meet other young people with the same problems and get a chance to acquire academic skills without the denigrating eyes of others on them.
A good initiative
For some years the association Autism Denmark had dreamed about creating a place that could give young autists a stepping stone to adult life. The idea was conceived in cooperation with an existing primary school for autistic children.
“I could see there was a need. And I got stubborn. We would have done this even if it meant starting out with a tent and three students. Because for many of these young people the alternative is an occupational therapy program where they carry out various routine tasks. And baking biscuits in a bakery is terribly demotivating for a 17-year-old keen about quantum mechanics,” says Jeppe Østergaard Hansen, principal of the Hilltop center. Two years ago he joined the project as daily project manager. He holds a degree in philosophy but, after working with autistic children for several years, he could help realize the dream of creating an education program for young autistic people with normal intelligence.
Support from the Egmont Foundation
As usually happens when local people are passionately committed to a cause, good projects never make it past the drawing board. Lack of funds, insufficient time and inability to provide the right conditions for all the well-intentioned initiatives are usually enough to kill the good ideas. So it was with Hilltop.
“We knew we’d have to put in a lot of work to realize our idea. Starting a new school in Denmark is not easy, and particularly an independent institution for children with special needs. Unfortunately there weren’t really any foundations that wanted to support us during the early stages, so the idea came to nothing,” Jeppe Østergaard Hansen explains.
Many Danish foundations would rather support established projects that already have a certain guarantee of success. This makes it extra difficult to build something completely from scratch.
“But the letter from the Egmont Foundation meant that I and the rest of the initiative group could devote all our time to getting the million-kroner project together. Our total budget was almost DKK 24 million, and the donation from the Egmont Foundation gave me seven months to raise the money, get all the necessary public approvals and then hire teachers – plus find lots of suitable students,” recalls Jeppe Østergaard Hansen.
From drawing board to reality
As Skive already has a local primary school for autistic children and the local authority is aware of the problem, the town was an obvious location for the school. On 1 August 2007, the first nine students moved into the new school. “In theory, we had a plan on the drawing board but nothing at all tangible. We were anxious to see whether we could
achieve our goal – whether the idea was right,” says Jeppe Østergaard Hansen.
From the beginning, as the school’s principal, he has met teary-eyed parents describing how they have waited 10 years for a place like Hilltop. He has also met young people who have found a haven after constantly changing schools, being bullied and made to feel like failures throughout their young lives.
November 2008
