Relief through art and laughter in Lebanon

Dear supporters

What a pleasure to always write to you about the work we have been doing. 

Last time we connected it was post the earthquake that hit Turkey, Syria and affected Lebanon. 

We have toured in many areas there and we shared some of the stories with you. But the most exciting news is that, with the support of Clowns Without Borders UK and yourselves, Sabine Choucair from Clown Me In and Guray Dincol from Fiziksel Teatro trained 18 people in the art of clowning in April 2023. As a result a group of 10 clowns was formed and they went on two big tours in Turkey. ( Istanbul and the South - earthquake zone). This will allow us to spend less money on the long run and do a bit less traveling ( do our bit in trying to save the environment) and have local teams go to the closest areas of disaster. Not that we hope to have more of those in the world. But oh well. 

We, also and like usual, toured many areas in Lebanon. As you may know or not, lebanon is going through very difficult times that are impacting children and their rights especially in disadvantaged areas like access to quality education and basic services (clean water, nutritious food, and healthcare). Our economic crisis, exacerbated by the pandemic and the Beirut blast, has increased the rate of child labor and child marriage and sadly there has been an increase in reports of abuse and violence against children.

So we're trying our best to offer as many shows as we can and reach as many places as we can. 

Your support means a lot to us and to everyone we serve.

We love you so much please keep telling your friends and family about us. 

sabouny 

Links:

• Clown tour

Hello friends,

Here's a quick update to thank you for supporting us. Thanks to you we managed to perform in the North and in Beirut a week after the earthquake. Lebanon was not badly hit, there was no distruction but everyone felt it. People in the North ran out of their homes and spent their night outside. Many in Beirut did the same as well. There was a lot of anxiety and fear in that following week. 

Clown Me In team felt the need to intervene quite quickly and thanks to your support we were able to send two teams, we did a total of 16 shows, reached 3000+ persons in Beirut and Tripoli.  

few quotes from the tours

"You made people happy. God bless you and keep you in good health! And may you always have this great energy. I only saw the ending of your show and I feel happy and thankful. I wonder what it would be like if I saw the whole show?! I will go fetch my daughter and grandchildren to meet you at the Mina. I want them to be as happy as everyone who saw you here. " (87 years old Ali on his 87 years old bicycle)

Links:

• the report Al-Jazeera made about our tour in Tripoli

Greetings, dear friends and supporters!

We are overly joyed to share how your support helped us draw smiles on people’s faces recently!
 
Several shows were in the books during the past few months, and our clowns Sabine, Samer, Riwa, Dima, Hisham, Youmna, Ramy, Jana and Steph strolled the streets of several villages around the country, especially focusing on the Beqaa this time, including the towns of Riyyak, Zahle, Anjar and Ghadir. We performed at the premises of several local CSOs including SOS Children’s Villages, Mouvement Social, Amel Association, Kayany Foundation, among others, and were able to reach more than 1000 children and 500 adults.

We have some beautiful and remarkable stories to tell you about how our performances had a positive impact on the people of those towns.

In one of the shows, we had to perform late at night and there was no electricity. The, the most beautiful thing happened: people lit the place with their phones because they were so eager to watch it and it was so emotional. It hit they to the core. People, including children and their parents, expressed that they really needed this drive away from reality.

There was this performance that we did as part of a memorial for a girl who had passed away in Qatar a while ago. She used to be with the scouts and loved clown shows, so they asked us to perform in her honor. It was so touching and meaningful. Also, the fact that she had passed away during a bus accident and that the first scene of the show portrayed a bus, was rather poignant because we tried to transform the sadness and mourning into something positive through our show. People were hopeful and largely appreciated the performance. 

We shed some tears, they shed some tears.

We laughed, they laughed.

We danced, they danced.

We made each other feel alive.

That’s not all! We also started rehearsing for our upcoming shows taking place in Tunisia in December, to end our year on a positive note! Yes, you hear that right! We will be performing as part of the 35^th Neapolis Festival and started getting ready.

That’s about it!

How a small gesture can make the world a better place for people is truly incredible!

With supporters like you in our corner, it goes without saying that we will always keep spreading laughter to more and more people who truly need us. Together, we can make magic happen! 

We pride ourselves to have supporters like you!

Thank you for your constant support!

We love you! 

Links:

• More on clown shows!

Hello supporters

What a joy to send you this update about how we used your support lately. 

We did offer many shows here and there in Lebanon and the highlight was a tour with Clowns Without Borders where Sabine, Stephanie, Ramy and Riwa from our team joined Naomi from CWB USA and toured for 4 days - we offered 9 shows, some were in public spaces with more than a thousand people watching and some were in orphanages and smaller centers. We reached a total of 3045 people and we got sooooo many laughs. 

Thank you for your support

Please keep spreading the word about our work and keep supporting us when you can and however you can. 

we love you
you too melt our hearts 

Links:

• Laughter

We can't thank you enough for supporting us to keep doing what we do best; Spread laughter and joy in different communties. 

With your support we were able to offer more than 10 performances lately to different communities around the country. With the econimic situation getting worse by the day, people are in desperate need for laughter and for free events they could go to. 

Last week, we had the most brilliant performance. Two new clowns started their journey with us. The energy was fantastic, the level of play was beyond and the kids of SOS village were the most adorable, fun, playful kids ever. They danced, they hooped, they sang, they laughed out loud non stop and most of all they were just as silly if not sillier than us. Kids of the SOS village are from Syria and lebanon, most of them have been orphaned because one of those endless wars we’ve been enduring in the Middle East for the past xxx number of years. 

And that day was yet another reminder that war is horrible. No matter who you are and where you are, the repercussions of war are more horrible that war itself.

Always thankful to be able to do what we do. and always thankful for your support

thank you. 

Please tell your family and friends about us. Every penny helps :) 

lots of love 

the clown team

Links:

• about our clown shows