When launching the project, we pursued four interconnected goals. First, to deliver a tangible improvement in the well-being of adult migrants living with anxiety, self-harm, or suicidal thoughts by offering them a regular space where humor, play, and movement could help them regulate their emotions and build supportive bonds. Second, to equip the teams at Casa Kuna and Ten Rock with specific competencies—therapeutic clowning, brief evaluation methods, an intercultural approach, and a gender perspective—that would enable them to address these complex needs while complementing external clinical resources. The third objective was to transform that expertise into an open resource: a bilingual guide that any educator could download, adapt, and assess using simple indicators. Finally, we sought to root the innovation within a European dimension; to test the methodology across different contexts and establish a collaborative network that would ensure periodic reviews, trainer exchanges, and new Erasmus+ initiatives. With these achievements, we aimed to move from isolated interventions to a replicable, sustainable, and shared model.
We arrived at this proposal after identifying a twofold gap. On one hand, in our region an increasing number of migrants presenting anxiety, self-harm, or suicidal thoughts live in precarious conditions yet fail to meet the eligibility criteria for public mental health services—long waiting lists, language barriers, and a strictly clinical approach. On the other hand, both Casa Kuna and Ten Rock lacked an integrated methodology combining circus arts with psychosocial support: in Spain social circus remains at an early stage, while in Italy there were no specific tools tailored to vulnerable adult migrants. We applied for this project to address these two shortcomings. We aimed to develop a practical guide that would transform clowning and other circus disciplines into a safe space for emotional regulation—easy to replicate in self-contained sessions—while simultaneously training our staff in brief evaluation techniques, intercultural facilitation, and a gender-sensitive perspective. Moreover, we needed a European framework to compare our findings, ensure the approach was transferable, and forge partnerships that would sustain this innovation beyond our local timelines.