NIEUWSBRIEF

PHOTOS: BELLA LIEBERBERG



The intellectual side of dealing with kids is well taken care of in Germany. We invented social pedagogy—the art of teaching someone to fit into society—when we were being liberal in the nineteenth century. This doesn’t help much now. Statistics say that youth crime is rising and becoming more violent, and politicians like Berlin’s justice minister Gisela von der Aue like to come up with lines like, ‘Probation is often not enough.’ The psychiatrists are called. The Robert Koch Institute, Germany's federal health institute, came up with the ridiculous statistic that one in ten German children has psychological problems. This is called stigmatising. More sensibly, the RKI also points out that kids from conflict-ridden homes under financial stress (not the same as poor) are more likely to become criminals. But what happens to the child when he loses it? He’s re-raised.

he deal is clear: by law, the child has to be part of any decision made about his future. The local Jugendamt, the parents and the child are supposed to sit together and make a plan for how the child will be raised. When the Jugendamt looks for an agency whose projects it thinks will suit the child, the child can’t go anywhere without being asked. But these agencies are private, in competition with each other, and under pressure to fill their places, and the projects they offer aren’t always vetted by the Jugendamt. This means that the private agencies keep their failures secret and make their successes look miraculous. There are 250 kids in Berlin alone whose cases are being investigated by human rights organisations.

The youth agency Martinswerk offers an opportunity for you if you’ve been kicked out of every other project in Germany: a year on a Romanian farm. The brochure says that instead of the modern “technological/electronic network” they get a fully-functional “inter-human network.” It’s a place without the sickness and evil of consumer society. It’s a place where you learn what it means to work for your survival. It’s a place where you think about what you’ve done. It’s also a place where you can’t run away.

Sebastian is 17 years old and was considered unraiseable. He went to Romania, came back, and is spending his last year of school looking after eight huskies with a reintegration family. We asked him what it was like. Then we talked to Frank Schwarz, the social worker who runs the Romanian farm project, and social pedagogue Professor Manfred Kappeler, who says that the rights of people like Sebastian are being violated every day. Something’s got to give.


SEBASTIAN F.

I started feeling that something was wrong when I was in elementary school. I couldn’t really concentrate and gave my teacher a very hard time. Then I had to go to Gesamtschule but I skipped class for half a year in sixth grade. I was eleven and I really didn’t care about anything. My mom told me that she couldn’t take it anymore and that if I couldn’t improve, I would have to leave. It’s my fault that I had to go. I never wanted to fit in, I didn’t act like people wanted me to. I think I was a very bad son.

Things didn’t change. She then went to the youth welfare office and they said that I had to leave. That’s how I came to Martinswerk. I was taken away from home within two or three weeks . My mom and the people from the youth welfare office drove me to a group home near Bielefeld, which was kind of like an orphanage. I was only there for a week, because I behaved like shit. I didn’t go to school, smashed a window, stole a car and that kind of stuff. The people who worked there said that they couldn’t stand me anymore. After I was kicked out, I was sent to Scotland where I lived with a Scottish family who didn’t speak German. I was twelve. I watched TV the whole day, played computer games and went out with their dogs. I had to leave after six months, because once again I behaved like shit. I was combative, cheeky and vulgar. That’s what everybody told me and I believe it. I mean, sometimes you don’t realize the way you are, the things you say or do, until somebody else tells you. After my Scottish experience, I was sent directly to a mental institution for three months. We had to sit around the whole day to kill time. Sometimes they conducted IQ and other medical tests. I don’t know the results of the tests, but I do remember that my IQ was tested when I was in fourth grade: I scored 130. That’s 15 points above average. Anyway, the psychiatrists said I had a problem with authority, especially with women. Maybe they thought that because of the way I treated my mom. Sometimes I locked her out of the apartment. I’m not really proud of that. I still don’t really understand why I had to go to a mental institution. They probably thought I was lunatic. My dad died when I was seven. Maybe all these problems that I have are because I never got over his death, because it created a psychological dent that never disappeared.

I was almost 14 when I went to Romania. I didn’t really like the idea but I didn’t really have a choice. They told me there was no alternative. Herr Schwarz, who took me to Romania, explained me that everything is different there, that it’s simpler, that I have to work hard. I was brought to a family, but I only stayed there for a week. It was weird, they didn’t really speak German and the Grandfather was a former policeman who always played around with his nightstick in front of my face while telling me that I’d end up in jail one day. On Sundays they dragged me to their church. I tried to explain to them that I wasn’t interested in these things, but they said I had to. I told Mr. Schwarz that I didn’t want to be there anymore and I think he also realized that this family was a little stupid, so I was taken to a different family.

I stayed with the second family for almost a year. And suddenly everything changed: I behaved. That’s why I was allowed to stay for so long. Herr Schwarz said I was an exemplary model for the program, because no one behaved like I did. I had to get up at six, milk the cows, bring the milk away, eat, clean the cow stables, watch the cows and then do some fieldwork. I learned that you have to work to get something back. I learned that you have to respect people in authority. Working hard changed my life. It made me normal, a well adjusted boy, not like before. Because I learned Romanian in three months and behaved so well, I was brought to a third family for a month, where I hardly had to work because they had their own help. I got a private teacher from Martinswerk twice a week for one or two hours. I left Romania three years ago and have been with the Husky Project every since.

I like everything about my day here, but what I like most is that everything is organized. Nothing happens unexpected. I can’t really compare the parents in my current program to the ones in Romania. The ones here were taught how to do this, how to re-raise me and adapt me into society. I also like the dogs because they accept you the way you are. They don’t care about superficial things. If you are nice to them, they are nice you. People judge you right away without even knowing you. Dogs don’t.

I will be getting my own apartment soon and I’m starting an apprenticeship as a butcher. Until then I will finish my Hauptschulabschluß. I don’t really have big dreams, that would be stupid. I take it step by step. No one knows what might happen.


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