Circus arts help Syrian children to move on

MARDIN, Turkey: Laughter rings out and there is an atmosphere of excitement and joyful chaos. Children are perched on stilts, others spin plates or happily perform aerial dances.

This is not a big top circus in a major city but a house in southeastern Turkey, where Syrian refugee children learn circus tricks in an innovative program to help integrate into their foreign host country.

The Her Yerde Sanat association (Turkish for “Art Anywhere“) works with 120 young people aged three to 20.

Just north of the Syrian border, at the house in Mardin province, there is a beautiful view over the Mesopotamian plain to Syria, which 80 of the youngsters once called home. The other children are Turkish.

On the ground floor, some 15 children alternate between aerial dancing from ribbons suspended from the ceiling, juggling and the trapeze, while younger ones in a second room play percussion instruments with an impressive intensity.

Upstairs, Turkish is being taught to Syrian children so they can integrate into school.

Some learn the circus arts everyday because they are unable to go to school; for others it is a weekend activity. Some become good enough to perform publicly in shows or regional festivals.

Fifteen-year-old Eyad Haj Mahmoud, originally from Aleppo in northern Syria, believes the classes are helpful.

“I learned things here that have allowed me to become a better person,” he told AFP.

It is a chance for the children to temporarily for- get their past — adult instructors, most of whom have a professional or amateur circus background, are told never to ask about their origins.

Surrounded by the sound of laughter and raucous activity, Pinar Demiral told AFP the children “are just here to create circus art.”

One of the co-founders of the association, established in 2012, Demiral said: “We use the circus as a tool to break down all the language barriers.”

In the daylong workshops, trainers switch from one language to another, helped by their students who also do music and hip-hop classes.

The adults are mostly volunteers from outside of Turkey, who come for an average of three months; some speak Turkish and Arabic while all know English.