The Finnish Youth Circus Association

The Finnish Youth Circus Association (FYCA) is the national umbrella organisation of youth circuses in Finland. The association was founded in 1991.

FYCA promotes amateur youth circus activities and aims at providing better facilities for youth circuses, circus amateurs and circus teachers. The association brings together both amateurs and professionals and develops possibilities for children and young people to take part in circus activities.

In order to reach its mission, FYCA educates trainers and creates possibilities for children and youth to take part in circus activities. FYCA organizes events, festivals, summer camps, courses and educational workshops. Production and publication of educational materials, providing information and projects in collaboration with several other actors are also an important part of the activity.

FYCA has organized youth circus festivals from 1994 onwards. Today, the festival is called Nurtsi – youth circus festival and it serves both as a meeting place, a training and performing opportunity as well as an opportunity of sharing for the whole field. The festival is organised every second year.

In 2016, more than 2500 people took part in the trainings, camps and activities organised by the association. More than 20 000 people took part in the weekly activities and workshops organised by the member organisations.

FYCA also keeps in contact with similar organizations internationally being a founding member of European Youth Circus Organization (EYCO) and a member of the Baltic-Nordic Circus Network. The association has been in charge and taken part in several international cooperation projects.

Another main focus is on the accessibility of the circus hobby, both socially (immigrants, people with special needs) as regionally (small towns, peripheral areas etc.). The association has run several projects to increase the accessibility of circus with the funding of the Ministry of education and Culture and Finnish Cultural Foundation with the result of new groups having started their work and materials being produced, to mention a few examples.

You can also find us on:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/suomen.nuorisosirkusliitto
Instagram: @Nuorisosirkusliitto
Twitter: @Nuorisosirkus
YouTube: Nuorisosirkusliitto FYCA

FYCA in a nutshell

❧ Founded in 1991
❧ 48 member organizations around Finland with approximately 10,000 students. Check the updated list here.
❧ Approximately 500 circus teachers and trainers work in the youth circuses and clubs.
❧ A founding member of European Youth Circus Organization (EYCO) and a member of the Baltic-Nordic Circus Network

Contacts

snslfi(at)gmail.com
Pasilankatu 2
00240 Helsinki, Finland
+358 50 414 2041

Projects

Ideas of Inclusion – Capacity Building in Youth Circus

Ideas of Inclusion was an Erasmus+ funded project by six European partners. The project focused on creating social inclusion through circus arts. The aim was to create materials and a training for circus teachers who work continuously with young people but may not have an education of youth work. The project gives circus teachers an understanding of how they can promote a safe and welcoming learning environment for young people of all backgrounds. The project increases knowledge of best practices that allow a diverse young people to take part in circus activities.

The project consisted of three parts: a group of experts creating a model training of 1/2-1 day that helps circus teacher to recognize their role in creating social inclusion and how different ways of speaking or acting can increase or decrease it; a training for trainers where the Ideas of Inclusion workshop was developed further; and bringing the training to national level where the training module was tested in multiplier events.

As research has shown that circus as a creative art form is a great tool of empowerment and increasing social confidence and skills, the project aims to making circus inclusive for everyone, including young people belonging to any minorities. Through the trainings and the training materials more circus teachers are capable of supporting young people and aware of what creates a welcoming, inclusive atmosphere.

The project is a cooperation between six European partners who work in the field of youth circus in the national or European level:

Suomen Nuorisosirkusliitto (FYCA), Finland (coordinating partner)
BAG-Zirkuspädagogik (BAG), Germany
Slovensko zdruzenje za cirkusko pedagogiko – Cirkokrog, Slovenia
UK Youth Circus Network, United Kingdom
Federacion Española de Escuelas de Circo Socio Educativo (FEECSE), Spain
European Youth Circus Organisation (EYCO), France

You can find the Ideas of Inclusion Handbook and Toolkit here soon!

Assistant trainers sharing knowledge (ASK)

Assistant trainers sharing knowledge (ASK) was a project coordinated by FYCA and funded by the Erasmus+ program. Altogether 11 European partners made the project happen in 2018-2020. The project focused on creating a European model for circus assistant trainer training. During the project, five masterclasses  for assistant trainers and trainers of trainers took place. In addition, video learning material as well as a booklet for circus schools were created.

See the ASK materials:

https://www.eyco.org/resources/assistant-trainers/

The project partners:
The Finnish Youth Circus Association, Finland
Estonian Contemporary Circus Development Centre, Estonia
Fundacja Miasto Projekt, Poland
Vlaams centrum voor circuskunsten, Belgium
Giocolieri e Dintorni, Italy
Circomundo, the Netherlands
FEECSE, Spain
FFEC, France
Circus Works, UK
BAG-Zirkuspädagogik, Germany
Cirkokrog, Slovenia

#circusask

Learner centred learning in Circus (LCL)

The LCL project focuses on learner-centred learning in the youth circus field. The project is a collaboration project between 11 partners and it is coordinated by the German umbrella organisation BAG-Zirkuspädagogik.

During the project two training modules were organized (in Gschwend – Germany, in September 2019 and in Toulouse – France in March 2020). During and after the exchange the facilitators will produce a “report/handbook” covering the reflections, activities and methods, which will come out of the exchange. A dedicated website will be created to gather and share all material. The results of this process will also be disseminated through multiplier events in different countries

For more information about the project, see the EYCO website.

Professionalizing European Youth Circuses (PEYC)

FYCA coordinates the Erasmus+ funded project Professionalizing European Youth Circuses (PEYC). The project is a European cooperation between nine partners. You can find the list of the partners here.

The project aims to increase the professional competencies of circus teachers and trainers and improve the quality of youth work done in youth circuses across Europe.

During the project, different training courses will be organised for circus trainers and teachers as well as for youth circus leaders and other administrative staff.

PEYC aims to encourage the people working in the youth circuses to understand their role as a youth worker and to appreciate it. Besides being just a pastime activity, circus can also be an efficient tool to increase social inclusion and physical and social well-being.

For more information and a lot of materials, circus games, exercises, tips etc., see the PEYC resource center.

Publications

The cards are created by Mirja Tuomi and published by The Finnish Youth Circus Association.

Every card has instructions on the back side. There are a 99 cards in each deck. The cards are divided into three different groups: partner stunts, three-person pyramids and pyramids and  are colour-coded according to their difficulty. The card set comes with an instructional booklet.

Price: 35 € + postage (Members of FYCA 25 € + postage)
Teachers and students of our member organisations as well as the students’ parents are entitled to the reduced price of 25 euros per deck.
You can order the cards by email snslfi(at)gmail.com or, if you live in Finland, you can buy them from our webshop.

Sirkuspyramidi magazine

The association published a printed circus magazine called Sirkuspyramidi in the years 1993-2020. Sirkuspyramidi magazine is dedicated to circus arts, youth circus, circus critics and reports and news from the circus field. The magazine is a member of the circus arts magazine network INCAM.