Following last years successful juggling championship we this summer made a large Circus Championship in our center with a panel of both national and international judges. In four days the children challenged each other in Theater and Comedies, Acrobatic, Juggling, Unicycle, Singing and even a School quiz. Among the children’s new records are 8 clubs passing and our smallest girl 5 years old juggling 3 balls. However, they are all so amazing that numbers somehow does not count.

Following the Mega performances at the Agriculture Fair; the Circus Championship and participation in a National Theater Festival that were all broadcasted by several Afghan Television channels, MMCC has become much more known by the public in Afghanistan this year.

Our Handicap Project that was supported by the French Embassy finished in the summer with a successful big event for and with more than 200 disabled children making their own performance after being trained by MMCC’s artists and young trainers. As a result of the project a smaller number of disabled children are now fully integrated to our center. The final event was furthermore broadcasted as part of a news item asking the Afghan government to put more focus on disabled children and their needs for creative and physical activities.

As with all new activities in MMCC the overall aim of the handicap activities is to bring them out of our own center to reach as many children as possible. Based on the methods developed through the project MMCC is this month conducting a workshop for trainers from a number of disability organizations to teach them how to utilize circus, singing, sport, theater, painting and acrobatic among other activities to integrate disabled children to the communities and provide them access to a more active life.

Making Puppets mainly from papier-mâché; painting curtains and instructing and performing with hand puppets have been part of MMCC’s activities, especially in our workshops for children in the provinces, since the very beginning back in 2002. This year the puppets have however become an even more integrated part of MMCC. In the beginning of the year we participated in a “United Nations of Puppetry” exhibition in Germany. In the early summer ShirKhan, one of our best artists, went to India for a puppet workshop, and thanks to the German Goethe Institute, we also had a 3 weeks puppet workshop in our center conducted by Mr. Jagodzinski, a German puppet master.

MMCC’s Mobile Team has been fully active the entire school season this year, starting with educational Landmine Awareness performances for 70,000 children in Jalalabad, Mazar-i-Sharif, Balkh, Kandahar and Bamyan in the spring; workshop in Kandahar in May; workshop and performances including Peace Education in Herat in August; Puppet workshops including a Conflict Resolution theme in Baghlan and Balkh provinces in October plus an upcoming cooperation with UNIFEM in Parwan and Jalalabad in November-December where girls and women assisted by MMCC’s mobile artists will create their own radio program and performances with an overall theme of highlighting girls and women’s capacities for being active parts of the society.

As part of expanding MMCC permanently into other provinces 3 new MMCC staff from Bamyan have successfully been trained since the early spring. By being part of MMCC’s activities both in Kabul and the provinces the new staff are now an active and fully integrated part of the extended MMCC-family. In August they took part of organizing MMCC’s first festival in Bamyan that included children from both Kabul and Bamyan. This winter they will stay in Kabul to learn from our winter program until the Bamyan project moves into next phase in spring 2008 with gradually more and more permanent activities and an aim of including a number of young boys and girls from more regions in the province to be trained to assist a sustainable expansion.

In MMCC’s center Summersault to a Bright Future is one of the new and ongoing projects building up role models for all boys in Afghanistan. Through the project some of MMCC’s best acrobatic boys will be delivering a set of values such as good behaviors, being good in school, practicing arts and acrobatic, to the entire nation. The project is supported by ArtVenture and has already brought so much of energy and improvement to all MMCC’s acrobatic activities. The total number of acrobatic boys in our center is now more than 70 with an elite team of 9 very highly skilled boys getting special training to become front figures in the next phases of the Summersault project.

While there continues to be a lot of progress in all MMCC’s activities and projects within Afghanistan, the expected tour to the US has unfortunately been postponed indefinitely. We are still hoping it will become a reality within a relatively near future.

After 5 years of building up MMCC, we are now gradually looking into more long term strategies financially as well as for the activities. Within the coming month we are expecting to prepare an initial five years plan including a long term financial vision. Meanwhile however we are continuously looking for support for MMCC in general as well as for a number of specific projects and activities. Among the most urgent needs is support for MMCC’s upcoming winter program for 350 children.

Any support that helps to continue and improve MMCC’s activities in Afghanistan is highly appreciated. For more information please do not hesitate to contact us. It would also be a great help if you send our website address: www.AfghanMMCC.org to your network.