Siberia for problem kids
Brigitte Lietz

Every country has a problem with children. In Germany they fixed it with a new program and I think it is a good idea. A lot of the children are growing up without parents or support. They start stealing, drinking and taking drugs. Nobody want them anymore.

The 14-17 old children are going to Siberia. They have to live on a farm with pigs, cows and a big garden. The next house is 30 km away. There is no choice to go away. The children have to cook their own meals and if they want potatoes they have to dig them out of the garden. They have to feed the pigs and cows and clean the barn.

The children stayed there for 1 year, and after this most of them won't go home. For the first time in their whole lives they felt good and important.

When I was a kid, we lived in a small city. Next to our road there was a forest with a lake. Every winter this lake was frozen. My first skates, my Dad's old ones, were way too big. They were screwed to the winter boots, which were 5 cm too long.

A bunch of girls and boys all the same age went every afternoon to the lake to learn how to skate. For all the kids it was the first lesson. We had a good laugh about how we were doing. It was not easy standing straight on the skates and sliding over the ice. At the end of the winter we were doing fine.

On one side of the lake was a spring. By the end of February the ice broke next to the spring. We were still skating, but one day I came too close to the spring and the ice under my feet broke. I was up to my knees in ice cold water. My other friends helped me out. They walked me home and helped take off my cold wet clothes. My mother got me a hot lemon drink. The next day I was back on the lake.