Everyone has the right to have fun, right? Especially vulnerable children and young people living in a country emerging from 50 years of military rule where child rights remains a big issue.
Everyone needs to have fun is the motto of Serious Fun Yangon, which uses circus skills to engage and empower at-risk children, youth and people living in disadvantaged circumstances across the city. Circus training gives participants a chance to learn new skills, be part of a team, build confidence and to create a lot of inspiring fun for themselves and their communities.
Serious Fun circus trainer Jules Howarth, in Yangon for his second season, has been teaching weekly workshops in collaboration with our community partners since December. We also have Circus4All Yangon, which has developed from a week's training of trainers in adaptive circus techniques to increase capacity in-country for people working with disabled kids. As the teams' skills increase, so too does the level of interest in an ongoing social circus project in the city.
The Goal
On Saturday February 13, Jules will bring the circus teams together for a day of workshops and rehearsals. We can’t wait to see what the kids and Circus4All will get up to when they all get together!
During the 10 days of this campaign, we will share with you the story of some of our circus groups in Yangon. We believe they are worth supporting. We welcome your involvement in this project and promise it will be a valuable, rewarding and entertaining experience for everyone involved.We’d like to invite you to join our Yangon 2015-2016 social circus project, by supporting our campaign and sharing it with your friends.
The Budget
A dollar goes a long way in Yangon. We have a budget of $6500 for the project and hope to raise half of that with this crowdfunding campaign. Our tipping point of $1500 is urgently needed for the event on February 13 and the stretch goal will cover the costs of running the workshops.
The Serious Fun Committee has a track record of behaving responsibly, spending money wisely, providing a safe and creative environment and fulfilling experience for the children and adults taking part in our activities. This year’s activities have evolved from the children’s juggling groups set up by Serious Fun and our community partners as part of the first ever International Juggling Festival in Myanmar last year.For the full story, see the Burma webisodes.