Students at Steinmühlen School Collect Backpacks for Their Romanian Sister City

Many of our new 5th-grade students received new, “cooler” backpacks for their first day of school. As in previous years, Principal Bernd Holly asked for donations of the old backpacks, which are almost always still in very good condition. Before the fall break, the students, together with Bernd Holly, were able to hand over more than 30 backpacks to the Marburg Children’s and Youth Parliament as a donation for the children in Marburg’s sister city, Sibiu.

Through this initiative, KiJuPa has been supporting children in Marburg’s sister city, Sibiu/Hermannstadt, since 2010—children who cannot afford school backpacks or bags. While in Germany, students typically use about three to four school bags, backpacks, or bags over the course of their school years, many families in Romania cannot afford them. In Germany, discarded school bags are often simply thrown in the trash or forgotten in attics.

The donated backpacks will be transported to Sibiu toward the end of the year in cooperation with the organization “Hilfe für Sibiu/Hermannstadt” and distributed there. For some of the children, the backpack will be a Christmas gift.