Circus Therapy
Homeless young men pass on the confidence and brotherhood they found in Ethiopia’s capital city.
by MORGAN SPIEHS| Photojournalist
Birhanu Taddese spent his childhood as a runaway and became a thief surviving in the streets. His confidence was minimal because of his short stature and his rough childhood.
“I used to live with my dad and we didn’t get along very well. He used to hit me a lot.” Birhanu said.
Now in his twenties, Birhanu ran away from home when he was 8 or 9. He spent time living on the streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city. After a year on the streets, Birhanu asked a warden at a juvenile detention center to take him in. He stayed there by choice for three years before leaving to join an Italian non-profit organization, where he failed out of school. Then he found the circus.
The Fekat Circus, located in the historic Italian-influenced Piazza neighborhood of Addis Ababa, is funded by international organizations. The project started in 2004 and aims to share and spread the healing qualities of circus arts. Members try to instill confidence in at-risk children such as Birhanu.
Fekat means blossoming in Amharic, Ethiopia’s official language. Dereje Dange, leader of the circus, described the human desire to encounter beauty, comparing it to Birhanu’s undeveloped talent when he was a child.
“When the flower is not ready, it’s beautiful but it’s not really…but when the flower is open… you can see how it’s beautiful,” Dereje said.
Fekat members train children in the community every weeknight in the compound. They lead rows of kids in stretching and mobility exercises and offer one-on-one coaching for juggling and balancing activities. The children are taught and encouraged in skills that, telling from the looks on their faces, have had a profound impact on their self-worth. Most of the children are from the impoverished Piazza neighborhood, which is currently experiencing rapid urban development. Some children live and eat on the streets. Many don’t go to school.
“When you go in their house, it’s dirty, everything is broken… they have the right to be inside of something beautiful.”
“This place is beautiful. It’s green. There are flowers, there are trees, there are colors. And the kids who are coming here are having these two hours of freedom,” Fekat Circus Coordinator Giorgia Giunta said. “So it’s really important for them to feel well. When you go in their house, it’s dirty, everything is broken… they have the right to be inside of something beautiful.”
More than a dozen men at Fekat spend their days and nights living and working together. The only rules are no fighting, no smoking in the building, and always be peaceful. They call their bond a brotherhood. For example, when one member left to pursue education, the other members paid for his college tuition.
Temesghan Girma is a Fekat Circus performer from the western edge of Ethiopia. He ran away from home to find education and escaped an Addis family that tried to enslave him in the Middle East. Temesghan hopes to see his parents again one day, but says he already has brothers and sisters at Fekat.
“Here, we are like brothers, like family,” he said. “We are one family, no? We are here, we work together, we sleep together, we enjoy together.”
Many of the Fekat members were homeless, like Birhanu, or orphans before finding the circus. Birhanu started training with Fekat when he was 14 years old. He’s now 21.
“Here, we are like brothers, like family.”
“He couldn’t speak with the people… It was really hard for him to have conversation.” Dereje said. Birhanu would keep his eyes glued to the ground, avoiding eye contact.
But Dereje worked with Birhanu and built his confidence, showing him how to use his height to his advantage. He found that Birhanu was especially good at entertaining children.
“I mean he has a really special smile… his facial expression is amazing.” Dereje said.
The Fekat performers, once street kids themselves, hope to stop the cycle with the kids they train by building their personalities and confidence. At one of Fekat’s performances for the community, a row of children clasped hands and bowed to their adoring fans. A bare-chested young boy wearing a cross necklace and leopard-print shorts spread his arms out in honor of the applause, staring proudly and shyly into the audience.
“If you give some money to a kid, he will buy shoes, but these shoes after a while get spoiled,” Giorgia said. “When you learn to be beautiful and to be funny, that is something that you will never lose.”•
Edited and designed by Esther Jones.
