(2016-ongoing)

Parada Foundation has been working on the streets of Bucharest since 1996 alongside street-children and young people.

It offers help and services to children and young people on the roads through mobile units, day care, school and healt programs, psycho-social support, accompaniment and professional training.

Through the circus and theatre Parada fosters the social integration of street-children and adolescents.

Currently, there are between 1,200 and 1,500 street children in Bucharest.

I met T., M., A., R. and all the others in a small room in the heart of Bucharest.

In those few square meters someone was twirling in the air, two twins were intertwined until they almost became a single body, others were working hard with their eyes careful not to let even a ball fall to the ground. At first glance, that room looked like a miniature circus.

Over time, I followed the younger children during training in Bucharest and the older kids (who became clowns and artists) during traveling shows in some Italian theatres. I felt their emotion behind the scenes, I saw their lives even outside the Parada Center in Bucharest and I heard from their voice how important that small room of a few square meters is in their lives.

 One day M. told me: “They woke me up, they changed my life”. M. was a street child and today he has become a true artist, a clown.