By Tania Skae | Executive Director
We are delighted with the impact that we have managed to achieve thanks to your wonderful, generous support. Over the last year, we have delivered more projects reaching more children than ever before, across the UK, Balkans, Greece, Jordan, Turkey and Poland.
From June 2023 - June 2024 our impact numbers show, across national and international programmes that:
Compared to last year, these numbers are higher. For June 22-June 23 we delivered 927 sessions and 28,169 smiles.
On our Bulgaria tour, we were delighted to install our wonderful Seagull Rhubarb and Custard Circus Big Top Tent within the location of the camp, and ran all our sessions within or around the structure. Each day we ran two or three sessions that began with a full team camp parade with trombone, drums, percussion for the children and a lot of energy. We marched through the camp singing, calling the children, and encouraging everyone to take part. Then once we had made our carnival invite we headed to the big top for the program.
As with all temporary camps the numbers would fluctuate from 20-30 in the morning to 40-50 in the afternoons. The highest including adults was around 65. The magic, colour and beautiful energy that this amazing big top tent brings, along with the best quality circus equipment, performances, play and showtime, shows children and families that we care, that they matter, that their happiness matters and that we can create beautiful happy memories together. This in turn improves mood, hope, sense of community, pride and activity levels.
The children and families are in very real need of communal activities with almost nothing else onsite for this. We saw in just the first two weeks a big improvement in mood and interpersonal interactions within the community, simply because they had an experience and place to share with each other. What is evident here is the dire lack of activities or any engagement for the younger kids. With nothing to do, slightly more challenging behavior is inevitable. Again we saw a dramatic improvement in this in just the first few days of our program.
"The Flying Seagulls always manage to bring smiles on people from all ages. XXCamp (anonymised) came to life upon their visit - the whole yard was full of laughter, colors and activities. I'm especially grateful for some unaccompanied minors that took part in the activity. In the day to day life because of the circumstances I see some aggression and difficulty with communication among them. But as your team showed up all of this vanished. And for two whole days I saw joy, contagious joy, in kids who rarely experience positive emotions. For this I'm grateful. Thank you for the great and fun way you handle all that comes up from these precious children's lives and bring freshness into my work motivation."
This is just a short anecdote of our work and impact in one place in Bulgaria. With your support we have been and will be able to continue to deliver our quality circus music and arts in more locations reaching more children than ever.
For any more information about our past or upcoming projects, please contact Tania our Executive Director on tania@theflyingseagullproject.com.
From Tania, Ash and all the Seagull team, thank you for your support, we couldn't do it without you x.
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