Värmdö Mates, Sweden

Värmdöpolarna is a unique ten-year-old concept where the authorities work together with teenagers. They consist of mobile units, each group of teenagers have a supervisor and mingle where young people usually get together in the weekends. In close contact with the police and parents their goal is to make the streets safer, avoid conflicts among the younger generation and also to create a network of teenagers. Värmdopolarna also help out at disco nights and other activities. This is a diary that accounts for an ordinary Saturday night.

Värmdö Polarna, Värmdö Mates
by Yanna

8.00 PM we started at the office to talk about the evening and if anybody knew anything that would happen. We were four persons who were working that night, it was our boss Anders, Micaela, Amin and me.Later we were going to McDonalds to eat our dinner, finally! After we have eaten we met up with Gustavsberg's nightwalkers to say hello and explain to the parents that don't know what we do when we are working with all the teenagers.

We continued to Ingarö to visit their nightwalkers and their youth center Brunnen. Then we returned to Gustavsberg to see if everything was alright. When we went to Lugnet, we saw two girls that looked really drunk and we stopped our car to check on them, but when they saw us they started to run. Me and Micaela followed them up through the forest, but they disappeared and we didn't see them anywhere so we gave up and went back to the bus.

When we came back we saw the police and they drove up to us and talked for a couple of minutes, but when we talked to them our phone rang and Amin answered. The people on the phone were really upset and told us to hurry to Hemmesta because some children were standing and throwing big rocks at cars, bus and people. When we arrived to Hemmesta all the children were gone and we drove round all the houses and looked for them but they weren't there so we went back to Gustavsberg to talk to the nightwalkers again.

Amin, Micaela and me had a smoke and Anders went to talk to some people at the pub, Gustav. After a few minutes he called me and Micaela on the walkie-talkie and he told us to come because he has found a girl who was crying and she would not talk to him so he said that we should try to find out if something has happened to her and if we could help her in anyway. We walked over to her and started to talk to her and tried to calm her down, but first she wouldn't listen to us and she seemed really upset and afraid. After ten minutes I asked her what has happened and I also told her that she could talk to us and she could trust us. Then she told us that she had almost been raped by five boys up in Lugnet! Me and Micaela couldn't say a word, we were in shock. All that we could do was to give her water, some blankets and hold her so she felt some safety. We almost carried her to our bus and Micaela told Anders what had happened and he followed us to the bus. She was really scared to talk to him at first, but me and Micaela said that he is alright and he can help her a lot. After a couple of minutes she started to tell him what has happened and he told her that he is going to call the police and she must do a report. I felt really sorry for her, she was only eleven years old, soon twelve, I mean, for heaven sake!

After one half-hour the police arrived and also the girl's parents. It was terrible to tell them what has happened to their little girl. When she had talked to the police, they drove away to see if they could see the boys and after that they went to Södersjukhuset, a hospital.When they were gone, we drove to Shell to get some coffee and something to eat. But we had only been at Shell like five minutes when we saw a lot of policemen, firemen and ambulances on the road to Hemmesta. We followed them and we saw a house in Hemmesta/Kolvik on fire. When we arrived all the people in the house were safe and they were not hurt, thank God. After we had helped the police to keep people away from the house, we worked for another half-hour and then we went home.

This, I work with almost every weekend. It is the best job in the world, (right now) :)I love it because I meet new teenagers every time I work and it's really fun to see them when they are in a really good mood and I really like to help other people. I can honestly say that I hope that more teenagers will work with this and I hope that they and the adults appreciate what we are doing on the weekends!