TSA HS Students Learn about Circus Zambia
Leadership at The Sharon Academy takes many forms. Rory ’20 and Alix ’22 Livingston displayed one form of leadership by coordinating a special presentation to share with their classmates. In February 2017, the Livingston sisters visited Zambia, where they participated in an exchange with the organization, Circus Zambia. On Thursday, January 17, 2019, they sponsored a visit to TSA by the founder of Circus Zambia, Gift Chansa, who spoke to the students about his work.
Gift Chansa is from Lusaka, Zambia, specifically Chibolya, which is a slum in Lusaka. In 2015, he founded Circus Zambia with a couple of others who had grown up in Chibolya. They describe themselves on their website as “A youthful and vibrant social circus company that equips young people from vulnerable backgrounds with circus and life skills while providing educational and employment opportunities. We do so young people can blossom and become change makers in their community.”
Gift Chansa talks to students about Circus Zambia
Rory and Alix experienced a life-changing cultural exchange on that trip. They wanted to share their engagement with Circus Zambia with their classmates and talked to Christa Wurm, Dean of Students, about arranging for time during the school week to bring Gift for a show and tell. They worked with him to prepare a slide presentation as he recounted the history and mission of Circus Zambia.
Brooke Ciardelli, American theater and film director, producer and writer, who founded the award-winning regional theater company Northern Stage in White River Junction, VT, first coordinated an exchange with children from the Van Lodostov Family Circus, based in Hartford, VT, and the founders of Circus Zambia in February 2016. Children and parents traveled to Lusaka for two weeks to teach and immerse themselves in Zambian culture. During the second week they performed a show that the children had created. That summer, Gift and co founders Amos Molokwa, Benard Kaumba, and others performed with the Van Lodostov Family Circus camp and toured New England.
The students were rapt hearing about how Circus Zambia then sprouted from a small idea to a organization that is known internationally. Gift and other co-founders of Circus Zambia have performed all over the world including the USA, Ethiopia, Japan, China and the UK. Gift recently traveled to England to receive an award from Queen Elizabeth II.
Circus Zambia raising money through sales of handmade goods in the TSA lobby.
In addition to speaking about his origins, Gift spoke of the effect the circus has had on improving the education and aspirations of the children of Chibolya. Students asked many questions about the kind of life he had in Zambia and must have marveled at the stark differences between his life and life in Vermont. Gift emphasized the importance of his American supporters. Public school is not free for children in Zambia after Grade 7, so Circus Zambia sells jewelry and handcrafts to raise funds to use for school scholarships. $100 pays for one child to go to school for one year. Without these scholarships, the children would not be able to afford to attend school. As part of the day, the Livingstons arranged for Circus Zambia to set up shop in the school lobby after the presentation. Motivated by both the story they just heard and the quality and charm of the products, TSA students, faculty and staff generated $466 is sales, enough to provide tuition for more than four students.
In her introduction to the presentation, Christa Wurm, Dean of Students, encouraged the student body to consider other special speakers they might know who could be interesting for the community to hear. Speakers like Gift bring a perspective on the world that students in Vermont don’t normally experience. Rory and Alix were fortunate to have had the opportunity to be exposed first hand to that perspective and sharing their experiences with the school not only added a leadership dimension to that experience, it also engaged others through exposure to new ideas.
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