Training course: Circus pedagogy as a tool for youth work development

Location: Finland

Dates: 12-19 October 2016

Number of participants: 26

Circus pedagogy as a tool for youth work development

T.c. for youth workers who want to use circus pedagogy as a tool of their work with youngsters. Participants will learn BASICS of some circus skills such as acrobalance, juggling, balloon modeling… and various methods of preparing a circus workshops.

IMPORTANT: WE ARE ACCEPTING ONLY ORGANIZATIONS WHO CAN SEND 2-4 PARTICIPANTS. AND HAVE PIC NUMBER. WE CANNOT ACCEPT INDIVIDUALS. IF YOU ARE NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF ORGANIZATION PLEASE DO NOT APPLAY.

PARTICIPANTS WITH NO PREVIOUS CIRCUS KNOWLEDGE ARE REQUIRED AS THE TRAINING IS ADAPTED TO TOTAL BEGINNERS!

In a context where it is becoming increasingly hard to reach youngsters, we understand the importance of developing and delivering interesting and stimulating activities to better involve youth worker’s target group aged between 13 and 30.

We want to propose appealing activities to youngsters in the form of circus pedagogy workshops. Apart from being attractive to young people, these activities convey modern values of citizenship, honesty and cooperation and at the same time build personal self-esteem and trust. With that in mind, we want to provide youth workers with an innovative and flexible method of work and educate them to help reach their goals.

We use circus activities as a form of pedagogy in teaching and in non-formal education. Our main idea is that circus activity is appealing and fun for everybody, making it ideal as a tool for educational work with youngsters. The aim is to introduce youth workers and youngsters to positive, healthy activities that encourages co-operation, and strengthen confidence, while developing co-ordination and persistence. The end result is much more than learning these skills – it also helps to improve self-esteem, build on a social capital and direct people towards positive ways of living. Our project will involve 24 participants from different countries all active in youth work. We want to involve many different countries as we would like to offer participants a chance to broaden their cultural horizon, make new contacts outside their countries and help them kick start their own international projects. We believe that these projects are a key to more efficient youth work, and therefore a key to improving youngsters’ lifestyle across the European Union.

Helped by a staff of professional circus experts, we rely on this project to reach our main goal of teaching the participants the basics of various circus skills such as acrobalance, juggling, diabolo, balloon modelling etc. and various methods of preparing and implementing circus workshops, which they will be able to use as a tool in their work with youngsters. At the end of our training course all the participants will be equipped with knowledge on how to prepare and implement circus pedagogy workshop on their own.

Working together the 24 participants and our staff of 4 will also interact with the local population ofering them a final public circus event consisting from a circus workshop and circus performance, to share a moment of happiness, of intercultural reciprocal exchange and, at the same time, send out a clear message about the potentialities of non-formal education to the young citizens of the hosting town.

Organizers

Association for circus, education and culture – CIK is a NGO based in Slovenia.

Association CIK aims to spread and develop the art of circus and circus pedagogy. We use circus as a tool for youth work. Circus pedagogy is a very attractive and creative educational method and is a great medium to reach youngsters, adults and children and give them chance to develop mentally as well as physically. Goals of our association are:
– To educate youth workers and give them new and attractive tools to work with youngsters and children.
– Encourage international mobility of youngsters through different kinds of projects.
– Networking and creating projects with other European associations.
– Create and perform circus pedagogy workshops for youth centres, festivals, schools, residential homes, children and youngsters with special needs…
– Create and perform circus performances in different public events.
– Offer supervision (professional counselling) in governmental and non-governmental institutions.