Award of Excellence
Sergey Ponomarev
Freelance for The New York Times
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"Afghanistan Circus"
Circus kids practice acrobatics in the circus compound in Bamiyan, Thursday May 16, 2013. In the circus garden in Kabul girls sing and juggle with clubs and tennis balls, while boys perform backward somersaults ride on cartwheels and form human pyramids. All together they stage educational performances on the importance of hygiene, school attendance, mine awareness and malaria prevention. The main goal is to entertain and give joy to an audience of their peers from camps for internally displaced people, schools and orphanages. “I’m really happy to see smiles on the faces of those poor kids” says Shamsot, 14, a son of one Afghan high ranked military who tried his skills in clownery. Berit and David were afraid that his parents wouldn’t be happy with what their son is doing but after seeing the show they encouraged him for more circus activities.
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