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Send In The Clowns...To Syria

This article is more than 8 years old.

When the news of the Paris attacks blazed over the wires, Benjamin Croft, Founder of World Business and Executive Coaches Summit was speaking at a conference in Istanbul, introducing his new program of “Conversational Intelligence.”

Like others, Croft and partner Sofija Trajcevska, were devastated by this news, but felt they wanted – needed – to do something.  So at the end of an online presentation to thousands of coaches from around the world, Croft announced he would visit the Syrian border with Clowns Without Borders to perform in refugee camps. “Wish me luck,” he said.

I had called in to the presentation and couldn’t believe what I heard. Sure, I support Doctors Without Borders -- but Clowns? I jumped on the Internet and learned that Clowns Without Borders (CWB) has a board of directors, financial statements and a mission statement: …” To relieve the suffering of all persons, especially children, who live in areas of crisis including refugee camps, conflict zones and [emergency situations].”

CWB started in 1993 during the Yugoslavian War, when children in Spain’s Catalan region wrote to children in a Croatian refugee camp. “What do you miss most, they asked?”  The reply: “We miss laughter, to have fun, to enjoy ourselves.” So the Spanish children asked Tortell Poltrona, a Barcelona clown, to help them.  He agreed and drove to this camp to deliver what can’t be broken or stolen: laughter. CWB carries on this important work today.

Soon after contacting CWB, Croft and Trajcevska found professional clowns who flew to Istanbul to support their mission of spreading joy and laughter: Nate from Cirque du Soleil, Justin from New Orleans.  In Turkey, Güray Dinçol together with Gökçe Türkmen, found two Turkish clowns to join the show and did a lot of on-the-ground coordination. Reaching out to aid organizations, they were able to cut through massive red tape to schedule visits to refugee camps near the Syrian border and also in Eastern Turkey, close to the conflict zones of some Kurdish and Turkish groups.

After briefings on the dangers in these areas, the performers started rehearsing their routines.  Croft and Trajcevska were invited to be in the show and got crash training in clown acting from director, Rudi Gallindo!  The clowns wore tights and rainbow-colored clothes. They put on red noses, the universal symbol of clowning, but no makeup. They didn’t want to scare the children.

The group left Istanbul five days later to visit a camp near the Syrian border.  In each camp, performances began with a clown parade to gather up the children – toddlers to teens – to the show. There was juggling, magic tricks, pratfalls, music, dancing and yes, laughter and happiness.  (See the video below.)

When they first arrived at a camp, Croft remembers, “I could feel sadness in the air like a dark cloud. Then it lifted. The people were so happy and excited to see us. They told us, they thought the world has forgotten them.”

Throughout their 500km trip, they met no other foreigners. This has left local tourism in a desperate state. At some of their hotels, they were the only guests. At night, in the town of Diyarbakir in eastern Turkey, Croft and Trajcevska listened from their hotel as bombs dropped, shots were fired in the street, and helicopters flew overhead. But during the day, the clowns entertained the children with music, acrobatics, and jokes.

In one camp they performed on a stage that only months earlier had been the scene of a massacre where 20 people were killed.  Two of these were aid workers and friends of the Turkish clowns. Croft recalls how the horror of this stage, filled with bullet holes, was transformed that day into a place of joy.

In just two weeks, from first contacting CWB, this team of courageous clowns brought laughter and joy to thousands of children in 12 performances.

Years ago, when I worked in an orphanage in Turkey, I watched infants die, because there was no one to hold them.  I saw children old enough to realize they had been abandoned at the orphanage, howl with grief.  I try to imagine what the lives of these refugees must be like.  It is like whole families and communities have been orphaned.

In the camps visited by the clowns, people of all ages have been cut off from the lives they knew – lives of routines, meaning and direction. They live in limbo now.

Has the world truly forgotten these people?  These children?  “Come back next year,” the children and parents yelled to the clowns at the end of their shows.  Here was something they could look forward to.  Here were people who showed them they mattered.

Visit www.clownswithoutborders.org for details or if you’d like to donate.

And take a look at the clown parade!  https://www.facebook.com/bencroft/videos/10153618249405395/?pnref=story