A circus school. It’s called Circus Picolino. There, under instruction from circus experts, there is the possibility to learn a trade enjoying yourself. It’s a school, a circus school. On trapezes, monocycles, on ropes and crash mats children without futures grasp onto hope, Meninos da Rua offers them their only chance. It was created to teach middle school children to become clowns and jugglers, thanks to the intervention of a Florence NGO, Agata Smeralda. It opened to accept youngsters saved from the streets, from ill treatment and brutally. Because in Brazil five hundred thousand children, poor and alone, undergo sexual abuse. Their abusers are almost always tourists, the majority European a good part of which are Italian. Men that for nothing buy the bodies of these desperate children, hungry and homeless, and then return to their reality with tans to die for and their transgressions fully satisfied.

The idea. To pull a child away from their life on the street is difficult. Total freedom is in conflict with social rules, with the closed classrooms and colleges, for them it’s like having their lives taken away. And it’s with this in mind that “Agata Smeralda” thought of the circus. And specifically “Picolino” where cages and animals are banned. An ideal place to express the vitality, impetuousness, and restlessness of children that have grown up without restraints or affection. An ideal place where they can channel their energy and have a chance.

 

A surprise. Three times a week, one hundred and twenty youngsters go to the circus school. They learn to twist, bend and balance themselves on a rope. They’re jugglers and trapeze artists. The organisers have defined it as a surprise: “This experience has changed their lives. They were much more undisciplined and had a lot of difficulty in immersing themselves into school life. Now they are pillars of the school and neighbourhood. They have become a kind of reference point, able to take responsibility. They are organised, involved. Now it’s them that encourage their friends to study.” What’s the secret? Concentration and discipline, are the fundamentals of circus arts, and also the basic steps towards self esteem.

And for the most talented this passion has become their trade. Some have been taken on and have board and lodging with the potential of becoming instructors of those children searching for hope. Twenty have already achieved this.

 

Reborn on a trapeze. Circus Picolino has, however, been turned into a dream factory thanks to the Agata Smeralda Project, supported by UNICOOP Florence, ARCI and Missionary Centres, that with the initiative “Broken heart” have achieved around two thousand long distance adoptions that have assured children school, books, clothes, living and playing space. And for some the circus. “That circus is amazing,” says Father Miguel Ramon, President of the Agata Smeralda Project, “I’ve seen desperate children, victims of family abuse closed in themselves to the point of being mute, reborn on a trapeze. The circus means growth, discipline, respect of others, and diligence.”