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Petra and her grandmother

The question came from the grandmother of Petra: ‘I want to take my granddaughter and educate her. Her mother shoved her out of the house and she has gone to live with the family of a friend. She’s sleeping in the living room’.

Preparation started and the coordinator met the daughter of this grandmother: yes indeed, she had put het daughter outside because she was impossible. And she didn’t know how to get things better. Everything in the family had always been violent and she couldn’t stand it anymore. She had to take care of her small boy and Petra just had to change her manners. (This mother had smashed the guitar of the 15-year old daughter in pieces). The brother confirmed the history of violence and conflict in the family..

The coordinator met the girl and the family where she was living. She heard afterwards the father put some suggestive photos of Petra on facebook and later she heard that suddenly Petra had a lot of money.

But things really came in motion when the ex-husband of the grandmother was met. He reacted: if thats whats she’s up to! And he showed the coordinator a clipping of a baby found in the woods. This baby was Petra.

We don’t know who told Petra about this, but when she heard it, she telephoned her mom. A lot of phonecalls followed and the mother told her her story: I was 18 and my mother maltreated me. So when I was pregnant and you were born, I was afraid she would do something to me or to you and I didn’t want you to suffer as I did. Thats why I hided you and abandoned you. But when I saw the photograph in the newspaper, I couldn’t let you there and went straight to the policestation to fetch you.

Soon afterwards, the family came together for a familymeeting without the grandmother, and it was decided that Petra went to live with her mother and younger brother. Petra took a course in self control. And when the coordinator was invited by the mother and Petra to thank her for her help, there were home made cookies, cidre and for the first time the small brother was in the sittingroom with them. And that was a great confort too.

A story from France