What connects daring and learning? 🎪✨

🎓During the Circus Transformation in Action (CTF) programme, participants are invited to try the very exercises they will later ask their own groups to perform.

By experiencing these activities themselves, they gain a deeper, more embodied understanding of what they are asking from their learners — including the challenges, emotions, and sense of achievement involved 🤝💡

This approach directly supports several competencies within “The Act of Teaching,” including:

🎯 Defining achievable objectives adapted to the target group and context.
🔧 Creating, adapting, or using educational tools to prepare, monitor, and evaluate a project.
🎣 Choosing the most appropriate format for a project’s final presentation.
🎭 Establishing clear guidelines for being on stage.

Participants also develop their ability to create, develop, and implement an educational project as a team — a key competency within “Steering Teaching” 🌍

🚀 Through this accumulated experience, they can build a more empathetic and learner-centred teaching practice. By becoming more aware of their students’ perspectives, they can better encourage them to take risks, express themselves, and dare to create ✨

And we have a few testimonies that show this process in action.

Let’s hear from the participants! 💬

#CaravanCTF #SocialCircus #CircusEducation

🎓 Learning is part of being human 🫂

🎪 The Circus Transformation in Action (CTF) program brings together participants from across Europe — and beyond — around a shared interest : learning how to pass on a love of circus to diverse communities and social audiences 🌍🤝

💙 During the program, participants immerse themselves in a supportive learning environment that gives them the foundations they can later apply in their own classes and organizations. Along the way, they develop skills and human qualities rooted in empathy, trust, collaboration, and mutual support 🙏

How can we truly create social circus without first experiencing — and reproducing — a safe and inclusive environment for the most vulnerable members of our societies?

💁‍♂️ 💁‍♀️ Understanding the different elements of a respectful, supportive, and accessible learning space is essential. It enables participants to remain consistent in their own teaching practice and strengthens the credibility of the program as a whole.

📣 This environment also helps amplify the message of social circus. Participants return to their organizations as active voices for inclusion, participation, and equal opportunities, carrying that message beyond their own schools and communities ✨

🤝 After the latest edition, participants took this experience back to organisations including Sorin Sirkus, Galway Community Circus, Sirkus Cirkör, AtroCirco, Skala, Palestinian Circus School, Coraggio, CIRQUEON, Circusful, Cirquenciel, Ateneu Popular 9 Barris, Zaltimbanq, Sirkus Magenta, Ecole de Cirque de Bruxelles, Don Bosco, Upsala Circus, and Kreativni Pogon 🌍

And we’re lucky to have a few trainers ready to share their thoughts on this caring and supportive learning environment.

Let’s hear from them! 💬

#CaravanCTF #SocialCircus #CaravanNetwork

🎪✨ What makes up the expertise developed through CTF?

🧰 The Circus Transformation in Action (CTF) program develops no fewer than 27 competencies across four modules delivered over one year.

These competencies are organized into four key areas:
🌍 Social Context
🧑‍🏫 The Act of Teaching
🧭 Steering Teaching
🧩 Circus Techniques and Creativity

Together, they form a specialized body of knowledge and skills for professional circus practitioners who want to use circus techniques with people who have fewer opportunities, specific needs, or diverse social and cultural backgrounds

🤝 That is why CTF works with experienced trainers who carefully design their modules to support meaningful learning and help participants develop their practice.

🙌 During the latest edition, we were fortunate to benefit from the involvement of six wonderful trainers: Ilaria Bessone, Steven Desanghere, @Tommaso Negri, Raphaël Beretti, Lukáš Houdek, and Katka Klusáková 🙏

🎓 Each trainer brought a different perspective on social circus practice, offering participants new ways to understand, experience, and imagine the field. As a result, they completed the program with a broader and richer range of skills — giving them an even stronger foundation for their own teaching and educational work 🎨

👀 And what do the trainers themselves think about this experience?

Let’s hear from them! 💬

#CaravanCTF #SocialCircus #CaravanNetwork