(I september besöktes vi av Ketan Trivedi, som skriver för en stor indisk veckotidning. Han gjorde intervjuer i Kumla skola och med Tuff-aktivister. Han ville att jag skulle berätta lite om ursprunget till Tuff och de första årens arbete. Här kommer det brev jag skickade honom):
Dear Ketan,
Thank you for your kind e-mail. I would be the one who expresses my gratitude for your visit in Tyresö. I was impressed by your journalistic professionalism when you made long interviews with teachers, students and with us Tuff activists.
I was also happy to have the opportunity to make half an hour with you on www.tyresoradion.se In a few weeks you will be heard and I will inform you in beforehand about that.
You wanted me to describe the history of TUFF. This society has been so intensely active for 45 years so it is an impossible task. But I will try to give you some information.
Starting with myself I was born long ago in the northern part of Sweden. It is said about my generation that we were born with skis on our feet and with a rifle on our shoulders. So at the age of 13 I was a child soldier and when I was 22 years old I commanded 40 soldiers in a military manoeuvre in snowy and cold northern Sweden. Four years later I was ordered again to be an military officer. At that time the Swedish establishment wanted nuclear weapons, so I refused to make military service and spent a month in prison, an interesting experience indeed. At Stockholm university I had studied political sciense and history and learned that in wars the majority of the victims were children and women.
Thus in 1967 we founded TUFF (=Tyresö Ulands- och FredsFörening which means Tyresö Society for Peace and Developing Countries). Our basic idea was that we could save the lives of many more people in the third world than we could by preparing to kill people by military means.
Tuff works in the old Scandinavian tradition (not so well-known in India) of people's movements i.e. people work together voluntarily to foster certain aims. Thus we have never had any salaried person in Tuff, so everyone works unpaid. This means that we can send each and every collected paisa to partners in India and a few other countries, while more official aid organisations are run by well-paid personnel. Their bosses often have shockingly high salaries.
Tuff is a local branch of Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society (SPAS) founded already in 1883. It is the world's oldest still exsisting peace organisation. I was in its board for many years and 1977-1979 its president. (I hope you kept the leaflet in English you got from Monica. It was written 20 years ago but is a good summary of Tuff activities and aims).
During the first 20 years Tuff activists often put a lot of leaflets in mail boxes so we got many paying members. These are not only a token of our democratic values but their member fees (Sek 200) also help Tuff to pay the rent for our Tuff premise and other costs. Now we have about 400 paying members, which is rather good in a Stockholm suburb.
After the hectic time with leaflet distribution we started Radio Tuff. It has been heard every week since 1985, certainly a record in voluntary radio. Sometimes Bhikhu Vyas is heard on telephone from Valod or Dharampur. On Sunday I will broadcast Radio Tuff no. 1324.
Already in 1971 we started coopertion with Indian partners. In 1972 TUFF Library and Reading Hall with 4000 books was constructed at Sarvoday Ashram, Shahpur, Junagadh Dist. And at the same time this ashram could build ten class-rooms which got the names Kumla Wing and Nybod Wings. A few years after that they could build Stenhammer Higher Secondary School and the student hostel Kvicken house and got Tuff money for a tractor, a well and other facilities. Kumla (which you visited), Nyboda, Stenhammar and Kvickenstorp are names of schools which through One Day's Works raised money for their Indian sister schools.
During the 70ies and 80ies I toured in many schools from north to south showing colour slides of the Tuff-Indian projects. About 20 Swedish schools have been active in One Day's Work in the so-called sister school cooperation for Indian partners.
(Well, this was the first part of the TUFF history I will give you. Now I must prepare 10 new sound files for Radio Tuff and www.tyresoradion.se but next week I will try to get time for continuing my story about TUFF.)
Kindest regards
Åke Sandin
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