Causes and interests
Cornelia’s causes and interests.
I was not always a writer. When I finished the school I wanted to change the world and I though the best way would be to become a social worker. I worked for three years on an adventure playground in Hamburg and I’ll never forget the children I met there. Many of them came from very difficult backgrounds and dysfunctional families, but I respected them so much for their courage and their compassion for one another. I saw them care for their siblings, where their parents didn’t care at all. I saw them laugh although life didn’t give them much to laugh about. They taught me so much that I still owe them.
After the three years I left and became an illustrator because I had realized that you can’t live against your talents. But by now these talents have luckily brought me enough fame and money to support children all over the world: children who are sick, disfigured or abused. Children who fled war and need a new home. Children, who aren’t loved or face death in a hospital. A wonderful doctor here in LA who has been working with abused children for many years said a very true thing to me: “Cornelia, we both can face a sad story, but only, if we can give it a better ending.”
If any of you has any ideas how one could help to tell these better endings, please let me know!