By IPS Correspondents
HARARE, May 16 1998 (IPS)

Some of the children wear the same tattered clothes daily, but they all turn up for practice each day to prepare for their star debut in the circus.

Preparing young Black children for the circus seems odd in this Southern African nation, especially in the high-density township of Mbare in the capital Harare. But according to Lifati Harimedi, producer and artistic director of the project, ‘Circus Mbare’, the innovative idea may be the children’s ticket off the streets.

“Circus Mbare is trying to teach street kids a skill. We are hoping that they can then earn some money and find their way back to school,” says Harimedi, who has toured with the internationally acclaimed Tumbuka Dance Troupe.

The project also may be a “preventive measure to stop children from becoming hardcore street kids,” Harimedi adds. There are some “hard core” characters among the group, whom Harimedi has given the task of forming the backing band for the circus performers. They occasionally come to rehearsal “high” on glue or marijuana, Harimedi says.

There are 25 children being trained for the circus, ranging in age from eight to 16 years. The band consists of six.

David Christie, who works as a consultant for Streets Ahead, the non-governmental organisation which runs the project, says they have deliberately selected children from Mbare “to show that effective things can come from a difficult situation”.

Christie says in addition to being from Mbare, the children have to satisfy two other conditions to join the initiative. “They have to be living on the streets or working on the streets, and they must not be going to school,” says Christie who worked with a children’s circus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for about three years.

Although the Zimbabwean capital has a relative small population of children on the streets compared to Nairobi in Kenya and the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, Christie cautions that if left unchecked, the problem will grow.

“Not enough is being done about street kids. We need to do more,” says Christie who is convinced that the idea of the circus is “an opportunity to show people that they (street children) have abilities”.

According to Harimedi, the circus will perform its first “gala spectacular” in December at a performance hall in Harare’s upmarket surburb of Avondale, an area where the only street children seen are those who look after the cars of middle-class shoppers.

Before December, the children will polish up their act with smaller shows in downtown Harare, and at the city’s annual Agricultural Show in August. Christie says these smaller performances are intended “to whet the public’s appetite before we take Harare by storm”.

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