DEVELOPMENT-ZIMBABWE: Children Find a Home in the Circus

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Morris Nyakudya

HARARE, May 10 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”.

“The December spectacular is to raise money for these children to go back to school,” says Harimedi, who adds that “the children are not going to school, because they cannot afford the fees and school uniforms”.

“The aim is to get the children back at school and into a career,” Christie adds. The project is currently looking for remedial teachers to work with the children, while they are learning the circus acts, so that they are not too far behind when they eventually go back to school.

Goodwell Basikoro, an enthusiastic child who looks big for his 14 years, is typical of the children the project is directed at. He left school because his parents were both sick and unemployed at the time.

“Now my father goes to work at 5 am in the morning and comes back in the evening, but he does not earn enough for me to go back to school,” says Basikoro.

Through the circus, the children are picking up a variety of skills. Since the majority are not fluent in english, Harimedi says this is the medium of communications used so that when the children do return to school, they are able to cope. English is the medium of instruction in schools in the urban centres.

“We will enroll some of the kids at the College of Music Pop workshop to learn guitar and other musical skills,” says Harimedi, adding “we want to have a total production, great choreography and lighting.”

Didymus Shumba, who trains the children in gymnastics and acrobatics, says while the children come every day and are keenly interested, he is worried about what happens to them when they leave at the end of the day.

“We spend the day with them and at the end of the day, they go back to the streets,” says the soft-spoken Shumba who performs with a circus called Zim-Zim troupe.

“It would be nice if this project can be extended to include ‘drop-in-centres’, so that the children can have something to do,” says Shumba, who also instructs other children in the middle- income surburb of Sunningdale. He combines the two groups at times, so that “they(street children) can see that they are the same as the other kids”.

Harimedi who wants to change the way people view street kids also wants to change the negative perceptions that people have about performing artists in general.

“Artists, from dancers, musicians to painters, are seen as irresponsible good for nothing losers who smoke mbanje and idle around,” says Harimedi. “The money is not good, but I feel like I want to do something for the community on a local level.

“Maybe in the future, I can use them in a dance company or maybe they can form their own youth group.”