Cheerful Updates from MMCC Global August 2023
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Social Circus blossoms and grows in Afghanistan:
Two challenging years have passed since the crucial change of power in Afghanistan. In MMCC we are both happy and proud that we have managed not only to continue but also to large scale grow and expand our social circus under the new circumstances. As a result of our new decentralized model, in which the role of MMCC has changed to host, facilitate and support a network and movement of youth with each their own circus team, MMCC in Afghanistan now consist of 26 Social Circus teams in 10 provinces. Each team, with each its own unique identity, self-made logos, and Facebook pages, includes 30+ children and a youth leader who trains them and organizes public performances and workshops for other children as well. Six of the teams are led by female team leaders, and one team is led by a disabled team leader who from his wheelchair empowers children with diverse abilities to juggle and have fun. After each 4-month cycle or ‘batch’ of activities, we invite new team leaders to join the network. Subject to funding, the MMCC circus network in Afghanistan is thereby expected to further grow to 40 teams in 20 provinces within the coming years. What makes us extra happy is that this year so far more than 50% of the children in the activities are girls. Link to the network www.mmccglobal.org/acn
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A new strategy – expanding MMCC to more countries
Inspired by the successful network model in Afghanistan, MMCC's 2023-2025 strategy aims to take our social circus pedagogy and model to several new countries. The model with individual team leaders who take full ownership of organizing activities with children in their own local community has proved both very organic and cost-efficient. It cultivates a very dynamic and competitive environment for the best to be discovered, inspired, and developed for bringing joy and fun with educational entertainment to as many children as possible. While the circus network in Afghanistan, due to MMCCs history of literally being born in the country, will remain the heart and core of MMCC-Global as we expand, the strategy for new countries is to work through and with existing local partners.
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Circus of Hope – our first social circus in Ethiopia
In April we visited Ethiopia and partnered with Bright Star, a well-established local NGO, to start social circus activities in Ethiopia based on the MMCC pedagogy and model. Within two highly effective weeks in the country, we got to know the local team, selected team leaders, made workshops, and introduced the activities, which we have since then supervised online from abroad. As a result… MMCC with our local partner has successfully created three Social Circus teams in the Chencha region of southern Ethiopia in less than 4 months. The teams all together comprise over 100 junior artists and 9 youth trainers who have already performed 18 times for thousands of local spectators. In Bright Star, they have been especially excited to learn how the shows besides entertaining are effective tools for spreading important messages to the communities. While the actual shows included a small message about child labor, an obvious next step would be to introduce and teach MMCCs actual educational shows. The activities in Ethiopia were a pilot project to test the expansion strategy and learn to work through and with a local partner. It proved overwhelmingly successful with so much potential. We are now together with Bright Star, our local partner, in the process of looking into how the social circus can continue and further grow in Ethiopia while we same time look into expansion to one more country aimed before the end of the year. To see more photos click here: www.MMCCglobal.org/Ethiopia
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Monitoring & Evaluation:
Our strategy for expansion naturally leads to some changes in how we work to ensure the quality and brand of MMCC. We are very excited that we just received the first draft of a super positive evaluation conducted and contributed pro-bono by Samuel Hall (www.samuelhall.org). The findings by the independent evaluation team among more conclude that “MMCC’s children and youth learn to become responsible citizens. They feel more confident, show signs of leadership, and mental health improvements such as learning to regulate their emotions and decreasing their stress levels while improving their physical health, hygiene, happiness, hopes, and aspirations”.
With the assistance of Andrea Garcia-Ochoa Lee, a dear and highly qualified volunteer, we also just implemented a test run in Afghanistan of our new monitoring system. The monitoring encompasses a comprehensive range of subjects and involves numerous questions directed toward children, families, and community leaders. We use kobotoolbox.org to collect the data. Within the coming month, we will thereby be able to integrate a global monitoring system into all our activities no matter where in the world.
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Help us spread the word
Funding is basically our only limitation for spreading the circus to many many more children in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and many more countries. We hope the successful pilot project in Ethiopia, together with the positive Samuel Hall evaluation and our new monitoring system can convince more donors and partners to join us in bringing the joy and fun of social circus and educational entertainment to more children and youth where it is needed the most. MMCC fortunately has a strong network of friends across the globe. You can all help us by donating, spreading the word, and connecting and introducing us to relevant partners. We are also very happy to engage more volunteers and receive pro-bono contributions such as eg the mentioned Samuel Hall evaluation. Equipment is a constant and growing need. If you know anyone in the tennis world, who could organize used tennis balls to be collected and shipped then please don’t hesitate to connect us. In Ethiopia one ball cost almost 2 USD – just imagine how many children could learn to juggle if a tennis club could be convinced to send a container full of balls they no longer need.
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Become a Member
MMCC-Global is a membership-based organization. More of our funding is conditioned that we have a certain number of members. With a minimum of 100 paying members, based in an EU or EØS country, we can fx apply for Danish government funding. To maintain our ability to make Facebook fundraisers by individuals (which has no fees and is both very easy and a good way to support us) we need 300 paying members. A membership is therefore a much greater help than the actual amount it cost. If you are not already signed up, we will be very happy if you do. The annual membership fee is 15 Euro/15 USD/100 DKK. To become a member, please click here: http://buy.stripe.com/7sI3fI6C26F0aTm7sD
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Join our Annual General Meeting
On Tuesday, September 19th, at 19:00 CET we are having MMCC's Annual General Meeting, which will take place virtually. The meeting will be hosted on Zoom at the following link: http://us02web.zoom.us/j/84100766630 . While only members can vote in the meeting, anyone is most welcome to join to meet the board and learn more about our activities and plans. We look forward to your attendance and engagement in shaping the future of MMCC. Thank you for your dedication and support.
Thanks for your support & generosity
David, Berit & all our friends & colleagues
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