Circus Action International

Inspired by the success of Cirque du Soleil’s “Cirque du Monde”, Ethiopia’s “Circus of Hope” and Cambodia’s Phare Ponleu Selpak, Canadian director Jerry Snell has founded another institution for Youth at Risk using Circus and Performing Arts as a tool for helping migrant and street children, working children, freed bonded labor children, trafficked and victims of slave labor in Asia and Africa. In collaboration with co founder James Tanabe, they have begun to set up CIRCUS ACTION INTERNATIONAL which is currently a network of teachers, programs, companies using performing arts and circus as an educational tool or simply a way to build confidence and resolve feelings of isolation and abandon in youth cornered by complex problems such as human trafficking, war, AIDS/HIV, poverty and political corruption.

The first conference of Circus Action International will be hosted by Cambodian Arts & Circus Company Phare Ponleu Selpak in Cambodia at their Circus Festival 3 to 6 of April, 2008 in Battambang.

If you are interested in helping to organize communications (they currently need an english to french translator) or interested in becoming a teacher in the projects in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and India, please contact Jerry Snell. The teaching projects are set to begin in July 2008. Send him your background and availability for the future, especially if you already have plans to come to Asia.

For more information about Jerry Snell or Circus Action International, visit his website http://www.jerrysnell.com or email [email protected]

For more information about Phare Ponleu Selpak, visit their website http://www.phareps.org
It’s in French, but there’s an English translation.