Opening the Circus Tent- Social Circus for Inclusion of Minority Groups Erasmus Project

Project Title

Opening the Circus Tent- Social Circus for Inclusion of Minority Groups

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Romas and/or other minorities; Pedagogy and didactics; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Project Summary

This project comes to life thanks to the interest of each of the three European partner associations to improve and acquire resources for non-formal education and best practices when working with youngsters from minority backgrounds in Spain, Italy and Hungary, where we work in peripheral urban districts of poverty and discrimination. Our youngsters are strongly affected by early school leaving, drug use, criminalization. The minority group we work the most with, is the Roma Community, but we work in mixed groups with youngsters of diverse backgrounds.
Overall, 17% of residents of EU countries are at risk of poverty. According to the Agency for Fundamental Rights among Roma that share is 80%. Many of the estimated 10–12 million Roma in Europe face prejudice, intolerance, discrimination and social exclusion in their daily lives. They are marginalised and live in very poor socio economic conditions. Around 60% of Europe’s Roma population is thought to live in ghettoised districts, which in turn is strongly associated with poverty.
Each of the participating associations in this project has a different local context and a different method of intervention with youngsters.
Circo Corsaro has a circus school in the poorest district of Napoles, Scampia, famous for the presence of the Mafia. Circo Corsaro is delivering social circus workshops with the Pedagogy of the Third Millennium, empowering youngsters to believe in themselves, have meaningful goals in life, fight for them, reach them.
Donyet Ardit is working with youngsters of Roma and migrant backgrounds in the periphery of Alicante, Spain in a poor neighbourhood. They give inclusive workshops focusing on circus and gender identity.
The Hungarian Juggling Association is giving social circus workshops for Roma and non Roma youngsters in Budapest with the method of Critical Pedagogy in the district of Pesterzsébet which is very affected by discrimination and marginalization.
All the three associations are teaching circus skills, create performances with the youngsters, and give shows to the public, with main aim of transmitting values and life skills to the youngsters through these activities.
The main goal of our project is to IMPROVE THE QUALITY AND THE IMPACT OF OUR INTERVENTION WITH MINORITY YOUTH AND OF OUR YOUTH PROFESSIONALS THROUGH THE EXCHANGE OF NON FORMAL EDUCATION METHODS AND INNOVATIVE BEST PRACTICES AND SHARE IT WITH THE WIDER COMMUNITY OF YOUTH WORKERS.

Following this line the results we achieved:
– To have shared methods, experience and innovating best practices in non-formal education through the learning visits to each partner country, in order to work in a more comprehensive and complete way with the youth so as to achieve a greater impact.
– To have strengthened and developed the cooperation and exchange network of best practices amongst the organizations that form the project.
– To have improved our youth professionals’ skills, abilities and resources thanks to the learning trips, the training for trainers, and other project activities.
– To have created a methodology to transmit our best practises, pedagogical approaches and results by a training course, and to have shared it with professionals from many different organizations from the 3 countries.
– To have fostered the improvement of employability of youth professionals by improving their skills, competencies and educational resources.
– To have promoted innovative teaching methods, namely the combination of the Social Circus tool with other tools and methodologies such as the Pedagogy of the Third Millennium, Critical Pedagogy and Pedagogy of Gender Identity, in the intervention with youth through the implementation and dissemination activities from the project.
– To have contributed to the social inclusion of disadvantaged youngsters.
– To have promoted inclusive policies and initiatives in the implementation and dissemination activities of the project.
– To have contributed to have made youth professionals internally and externally as well as the general public aware of the situation of marginalized youth and the need for this kind of inclusive actions.
During the project activities 18 participants, professionals of our associations will visit our partners and have theoretical and practical training on the methodology they are using. Also 18 professionals from the field of social circus and social work in our countries will have a training for trainers to learn our methods and gain the skills and competences to use them in their respective local communities.
This project will last 14 months but the intervention of our participants and organizations with the youth will continue, incorporating the project results, for a greater impact. The learning achievements of the participants will materialize in the quality of future interventions, and the network created amongst the professionals will continue supporting the work of all of us.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 42060 Eur

Project Coordinator

Associazione Polisportiva Dilettantistica Circo Corsaro & Country: IT

Project Partners

• Asociación Donyet Ardit
• MAGYAR ZSONGLOR EGYESULET