Alik, Dima, Arthur, Andry and Janis are out playing when an older man reeking of booze is looking for something valuable in the garbage nearby. Dima and the rest of the boys asks for cigarettes and the man gives them one each. They quickly light them and the old man returns to his scavenging.

They are called social orphans. Children who have parents in life, but without a socially safe and secure environment to grow up in, often due to alcohol and drug abuse among their parents. Growing up in this kind of environment can leave the children maladjusted with an absence of the most fundamental social skills. At home they are introduced, at an early age, to tobacco, alcohol and sometimes drugs, which increases the risk of early usage.

By a homemade table consisting of a plank resting on two tires sits 10-year-old Janis. He and a few others come here almost every day. The attic of a run down house has become a haven free from adult intervention. They are some of the countless children in Riga at risk of ending up in the street.

In the abandoned house there are no stairs to the attic. Dima, Andry, Janis have to climb up. In order to get down again they jump through a large hole where the ceiling once collapsed. On the floor beneath there's everything from bricks and other building material to broken bottles and syringes.

Oksana and Danek share a cigarette.

On the wallpaper in one of the many rooms at the Irlava orphanage phrases like 'Don’t drink and drive when you can smoke and fly', 'Thug life' and 'Smoke weed 4 ever' are scrawled everywhere. In between the graffiti there are holes from when the children kicked and punched the wall out of boredom or anger. From an old CD player comes the sounds of gangster rap hip hop. Last year, 8500 children was taken from their parents by the Latvian Social Services. Those children who don't have any relatives to take care of them often end up in orphanages if they don't run away and take to the street.

Five boys and one girl got drunk after school. Riga-born Alex is sleeping it off when two uniformed police officers come to the Irlava orphanage and demands an alcohol test. If a test is positive, they write a report and the intoxicated child gets a fine. The money is deducted from the small allowance orphaned children get every month.

When the children are angry or sad the feelings often expresses themselves in aggression and violence. 10-year-old Artur has just been in a fight with another boy at the day center Arken. It often begin as play, but quickly escalate into fighting.

Oksana smoke even though she’s not even in her teens. She gets cigarettes from older kids or from begging in the street.

Alik and Andry climbing through the fence of a construction site near where they live. Inside they quickly became bored and decided to keep looking for something to make the last hours of the day go by.

There’s no warmth in the sun when Janis, Artur, Andry, Dima and Oksana strolls down Jekabpils street. Although it is close to zero degrees outside, the kids have thin jackets on, Janis just a sweatshirt. They knock on the window belonging to the day center Arken and continues into the house's backyard. They enter a stairwell and wait outside a green door. After just a moment 20-year-old Andris open the door from inside and lets them in. The building in which the day center is located looks like the rest of the buildings in the eastern suburb Maskavas. Run down with faded and paint flaked facades. Almost everything in Arken is old and broken, most recently the heat pump broke down. Although spring is on its way it’s very cold in the day center. The overgarment stay on for those who have them.