Social circus and health equity: Exploring the national social circus program in Ecuador

Abstract

Social circus programs are expanding worldwide; however, little scholarship exists on their impact. Ecuador offers one of the world's largest government-sponsored programs, reaching almost 25,000 people annually. Aimed at promoting social solidarity and inclusion, programs are currently offered to street-involved youth, as well as children from marginalized communities and adults with disabilities. Identified tensions include the balancing of artistic versus social goals; integration of traditional social work approaches with social circus techniques and methodological challenges in evaluation. This program shows great promise and merits comprehensive interdisciplinary research, particularly regarding its impact on healthy equity.

Keywords::

• social circus
• health equity
• social inclusion
• interdisciplinary
• Ecuador

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to sincerely thank the Ecuadorean program organizers from Circo Social, including Julio Bueno, Alexander Vega and especially Pedagogical Director, Benjamin Ortiz, who generously shared his knowledge and program statistics and facilitated our visits to the program sites. We also wish to thank Gil Favreau, Emmanuel Bochud and David Simard from Cirque du Soleil for their enthusiastic support for this research partnership. We are grateful to the Circo Social instructors, monitors, and participants in Cuenca, Quito and Tena who allowed us to participate in their social circus experience and openly shared their stories and perceptions. Additionally, we wish to acknowledge the support of research team members Dr Lyn Fels (Simon Fraser University), Dr Katherine Boydell (University of Toronto), Dr Patrick Leroux (Concordia University), Dr Susan Cox (University of British Columbia) and Dr Jaime Breilh (Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar [UASB]) who contributed their insights and have agreed to join us in this journey as we go forward. We would also like to thank our collaborators from the National Circus School, Patrice Aubertin and Myriam Villneuve, as well as Maria Jose Breilh and Yllonka Tilleria from UASB, for their assistance. Lastly we are deeply grateful to Karen Lockhart and Stephanie Parent for their wonderful assistance in preparing this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council [895-2012-1008] and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research [CIHR MOP-120778].