Thousands of children in Kabul suffer from the traumas of war and loss. How do you bring back joy, enthusiasm and happy memories into their lives? According to David Mason not by focussing on dark, traumatic experiences, but rather by bringing back their faith in their own strengths. At the circus, the children develop their creativity by juggling, performing acrobatics, and singing.
A few years ago David appeared in an episode of the Dutch television program Floortje to the end of the world. He explained to journalist Floortje Dessing: “You can choose to be negative, and to focus on the pain and problems, and try to resolve it. What we do is the opposite. We discover the positive, and there is plenty of it. We focus on it, we develop it, and it takes over the negative stuff”.
During this lecture David shares his personal experiences and vision on working in Afghanistan with traumatized children. He will be introduced by photographer Thijs Broekkamp, who met David Mason in Afghanistan and made a short film about his work:
You can buy a ticket including or excluding lunch.
About the speakers
- David Mason grew up in Iran and Denmark and founded the MMCC (Mobile Mini Circus for Children) in Afghanistan in 2002, devoting his life to giving young Afghans an opportunity to explore their creative potential through a convergence of mind and body by Social Circus. This is a way of learning that heals traumas and promotes growth in a country beset by war. With 16 years of experience the MMCC has become a leading organisation in cheerful and innovative pedagogy for children of war and is expanding to countries with similar conflicts.
- Thijs Broekkamp is a travel photographer. He met David Manson when he was in Afghanistan for his photography project “The Stans Project“. For this project he is traveling to all of Central-Asia’s former Soviet republics and Afghanistan, to try to understand why we often have untrue prejudices about places and people we don’t know anything about.
