The healing power of laughter
Joy for children in crisis areas
On 1 September 2007 Josef “Jupp” Steinbusch, a graduate social worker, former probation officer and the founder of the Pinocchio children’s circus, won the Aachen Peace Prize. Appalled by the pictures from the war in the Balkans, Steinbusch established his circus in 1996 and every year spends the summer holiday travelling through the former war zones to develop and present circus programmes with the local children. When he was awarded the Aachen Peace Prize, the citation stated that he was committed “as a role model working “from the bottom” to achieve peace and to help people traumatised by war.”
Help for traumatised children
The Aachen children’s circus is a circus where children join in and the performance itself is not the most important thing. Instead, it is the experience of creating and putting on a circus programme together, with everyone enjoying the process. The concept of the event is the idea of bringing together children’s creativity and solidarity via the fantastic medium of a children’s circus and implementing it in practice for fun and pleasure. The children at kindergartens and schools in Aachen are delighted to practice a circus routine themselves and then present it in the Pinocchio tent in front of a large audience together with Juppino the circus clown.
Support from the Peter Ustinov Foundation
The Peter Ustinov Foundation supports the travels of the Pinocchio circus in former European conflict areas such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Belfast and also other projects such as Romania. In the eyes of the Foundation the exemplary commitment demonstrated by Josef Steinbusch is exactly what Sir Peter Ustinov and our Foundation endeavour to achieve through a series of funded projects. We want to help children where they live so that disputes will not have a negative impact on the life of children in the form of ongoing mistrust and hate.
The Peter Ustinov Foundation becomes involved in this and further projects to benefit children in need and their families. Please join us in our humanitarian project and give children a future with hope.
> Further information at: www.ac-kinderzirkus-pinocchio.de
