Learning through Social Circus and Play in Myanmar
About this Project
Since 2014 we have been delivering Social Circus workshops for children and young people in Yangon, Myanmar. "Social Circus" engages and empowers young people by giving them a chance to learn new skills, play and share together, develop their personal and social skills - making a positive change for themselves and inspiring others in their communities.
Social Circus activities are a form of 'informal-education' accessible to all and developing abilities to think-for-yourself, process change, problem-solve, use creative-thinking to find solutions and empathise with others.
Participants experience a real sense of achievement through improving their co-ordination skills and self-confidence, within an atmosphere of mutual respect and trust.
"These young people are seeing themselves progress, which is a gift denied to the disadvantaged too often.” – Supporter, Alex Mackenzie.
Why it Matters
Our motto is "Everyone Needs to Have Fun". We work with children and young adults living in a country struggling with the transition from decades of military rule; a country where child rights remain a big issue. Children too often bear the brunt of exploitation and violence fueled by poverty and ethnic tensions. Social circus brings people together regardless of race, religion, gender or disability. In a society building a new future, the need for mutual understanding, equality and respect for one another is more important than ever. We hope to make a positive difference using Play and circus-skills to empower young people to learn new things, achieve more than they expect and by sharing in this experience they learn trust and respect for each other.
Who is Involved
Many of the children and young people taking part in Social Circus Myanmar programmes are street kids, orphans, child labourers, children who have fled the conflict zone, children living with disabilities and children who can't go to school because they have to work to help their families.
See last season's action in our slideshow video
Led by (volunteer) professional circus skills trainer and performer Jules Howarth, Social Circus Myanmar has partnered with local community organisations and schools to deliver workshops in and around Yangon since 2014. This year our activities will take place during January to March. Some of the circus teams have been involved right from the start, while others are joining the programme as it develops.
Eden Centre for Disabled Children
Help Make It Happen
Thanks so much to everyone who has supported this project over the past few years. We've had four successful seasons already and couldn't have got this far without you. Please support us again if you can and share our crowdfunding campaign with family and friends. With your help, we will make it happen! This Crowdfunding is our main source of income for the project.
Thanlyin Boys' Training Centre
Plans for this Season 2018 - 19 (December to March)
Yangon-based colleague Julien Ariza is already delivering one or two workshops a week. Due to a family illness Jules couldn't get to Myanmar in December. He will arrive Jan 12th 2019 and stay to early March, resuming the regular workshops for our existing social circus groups, working again with Ko Than Htut and trying to expand teaching capacity by training more local tutors.
Julien Ariza and Ko Than Htut
Our biggest Yangon-based supporter and team-member Ko Pho Ke, who has been involved since the beginning, and been our "main-man" as driver, fixer, translator and workshop tutor has got a heart condition and so can no longer work with us. He still loves and supports the project and though everything we do will be more difficult without him, we carry on.
Ko Pho Ke at Eden Centre for Disabled Children
Our community partners include
- Eden Centre for Disabled Children
- Thanlyin Boys' Training Centre (Department of Social Welfare)
- Mary Chapman School for the Deaf
- Taw Mae Phar Hostel, Insein, (Children from the conflict zone in Karen state)
- Yadana Foster Home, Mingaladon
- Scholarships 4 Street Kids/Hope for Shining Stars, Mingaladon
- Sonne Social Organisation (We are on their web site here)
Sonne Social Organisation
Our Values
Inclusion, Accessibility, Gender Equality, Sharing, Creativity, Learning through Fun and Play.
Our Mission
- To provide a platform for young people to play, share, learn together and inspire each other while developing their skills, confidence and sense of self-worth.
- To train tutors, performers and crew to support ongoing social circus activities.
- To work with Myanmar partners to develop a locally-led social circus network (by registering a Myanmar-based NGO so that project can raise funds and be run by Myanmar people for Myanmar people) and eventually create a training centre for circus arts.
Yadana Foster Home and Scholarships 4 Street Kids
Results from Last Season (2017-18)
We delivered 55 workshop sessions with our regular groups, 4 public event drop-in workshops, 15 booked workshops with international school children in and around Yangon.
- Kids engaged weekly with our core 6 groups (over 16 weeks): 150 per week
- Drop-in workshop at event engagements: 150
- Regular weekly workshop with international school kids (for 10 weeks): 38
- One-off workshops (booked to raise funds): 140
A total of individual engagements: 1830 (approx.)
We earn income in Yangon by delivering workshops and shows to International Schools and at events.
We brought international school children together with our Myanmar circus groups children so that they could play and learn together and have a good experience of getting to know each other through a shared activity. Thank you - Myanmar International School Yangon, Joseph Kessel International French School.
We didn't have the funds to hold a special Day of Fun in this season but we did get 100 of our 'circus-kids' to attend the Big British Day Out where we made a parade and showed what we do in a large group.
We rented a small house for the season which allowed us to host volunteer supporters, have a base to train and improved our logistics a lot - the first Circus House in Yangon.
Visiting international volunteers joined the workshops for a few weeks over the season, introducing new technical and performance skills, giving support and making it possible to deliver better quality sessions.. Thank you Lea Rovero, Frank Powlesland, Milan, Jill Ridgewell, Phill Lang, Rakel Moreno.
We made 20 new hula-hoops, 12 pairs of hand-held stilts, 100s of new juggling balls.
And a workshop event was held to celebrate International Social Circus Day on 7th April 2018, one of more than 50 events which took place around the globe.
Thanks for your support, you are making it all possible!
Social Circus Myanmar Board of Directors