Of course, it's just a small part of the society who is doing circus. But for example, in Afghanistan, it gives children from IDPs (Internally Displaced People) the chance to visit a normal school. They pick them up from the camps and bring them to normal school and after that, to the circus. They train, get lunch and then they go home. It helps them to structure their lives because in these huge refugee camps it’s pretty hard to concentrate. Many families live with many people under one roof or even in one room. It's hard to concentrate in those circumstances.
In Iran, it’s a traditional family circus. Khalil Oghab, the founder, called the ‘Hercules of Persia’, worked on bazaars and circuses around Iran. Later, he went to Italy and England and in 1993, he packed more than thirty trucks full of animals and artists to open up a circus in Iran, right after the revolution and the war. Since then, many international and national artists from different ethnicities have worked together. Except for women, because in Iran, it’s a law that women aren't allowed to perform in front of an audience.
The wife of one of the artists trained anyways every night on the rope to go to a Turkish circus with her husband someday in the future. Now, they have shows in the morning and shows in the evening. The ones in the morning are for schoolchildren, which is amazing. The girls and boys are, of course, separated. The boys are sitting quiet and shy on their chairs, but the girls are dancing and screaming. And nobody forbids them, which is amazing.