Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Phuket News: Children's circus focuses on fun in war-torn Afghanistan
KABUL: In a dusty city of grey concrete blast walls where there's not always much to smile about, the organisers of a children's circus try to provide a splash of colour and some moments of joy.
 
Afghan children from The Mobile Mini Circus for Children (MMCC) take part in a performance in Kabul on April 21.
 Photo: AFP/Massoud Hossaini
from:  thephuketnews.com
by: AFP
Monday 6 May 2013
The Kabul-based Mobile Mini-Circus for Children (MMCC) was founded in Afghanistan in 2002, months after the fall of the hardline Taliban Islamic regime which banned music and dance.

Fewer than one million children -- and no girls -- attended school nationwide at the time.

While other NGOs and government agencies focused on food, shelter and education, MMCC (www.afghanmmcc.org) strove to introduce "soft" values bringing children together to foster a more joyful atmosphere despite frequent hardship.

"It's a special circus," said founder David Mason, a former salsa and tango dance instructor from Denmark.

"It's a circus to educate, give meaning to life, make children happy, make them dream and realise their dreams and gain self-confidence and inspiration."

Professional adult artists tour and perform for children across the war-torn country.

In the past 11 years, Mason told AFP, the circus and its local partner the Afghan Educational Children's Circus have attracted a total live audience of more than 2.7 million people in 25 provinces.

At a show in Kabul on Sunday to mark World Circus Day, young performers in colourful cloaks circled a courtyard on rollerskates and headscarved girls showed off their juggling skills.

Children performed cartwheels and backward somersaults and formed human pyramids, dancing and clapping to entertain an audience of their peers from a camp for internally displaced people and an orphanage.

Conditions in the camps housing the country's half a million internal refugees are notoriously harsh. In the winter of 2011-2012 about 100 people, mostly children and the elderly, lost their lives in the cold.

"When you are living under a plastic sheet in a Kabul winter, then... hardship and surviving makes people forget about living. And then once you have survived, there's nothing much to live for," said Mason, 47.

The circus works to change that.
 - See more at: http://www.thephuketnews.com/childrens-circus-focuses-on-fun-in-war-torn-afghanistan-39235.php#sthash.Nw7wp1op.dpuf

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