Case study: Child from Kotayk, Armenia

Little children have specific wishes for their future professions. Some are quite real - they want to become a doctor, teacher, policeman or a fireman. Others are a somewhat bizarre - they want to become Thumbelina, Prince Charming, Batman or Spider-Man. The children then grow up and become copywriters, solution developers, quality assurance facilitators or systems administrators, for example. One Armenian girl decided to follow what she had dreamt of as a child.

Presenting... Nelly the magnificent
Amazing animals, tightrope walkers, trapeze artists, clowns, fire breathers and acrobats... yes, the circus is coming to town! No one is looking forward to it more than 15-year-old Nelly from the SOS Youth Facility in Yerevan, who is going to become a circus artist.

Practical athlete
At first glance, Nelly looks like a typical urban teenager who's got an obsession with hip hop music. She's anything but that. All her life, Nelly has been a true athlete. While living at SOS Children's Village Kotayk, she was the captain of the football, basketball and volleyball teams. "I can't imagine my life without sports," says the dark-eyed girl. "When we didn't have team practice (in the village), I'd just run around."

Moving to the youth facility in the capital meant a change to her life style. No longer having the vast space of the village, Nelly had to adapt her habits to a cramped city life. She joined the local volleyball team, began jogging around the neighbourhood and doing aerobics in her room. "Running in the city is far from being a pleasure, so I go jogging at dawn when there are almost no cars or exhaust fumes," says the sporty teenager.

Nelly is probably the quietest teenager in the youth facility. "A few days after Nelly came, she had her hair braided, like the hip hop stars," says her education supervisor. "We thought that she was trying to express herself and expected to hear Snoop Dogg's albums playing at full blast." It turned out, however, that her hair had constantly been getting in her face when she was playing sports, so Nelly got one of the girls who was training to be a hairdresser to braid her hair.

A tough choice made easy

When the time came to choose a vocational school, Nelly was troubled. "I always wanted to be part of a circus, but I thought 'OK, this is for real now. Do I really go ahead with it and go into the circus? Won't people laugh at me?'" It turned out Nelly was the only one who thought that way.

"I am happy that my (SOS) mother, the education supervisors and all my friends have supported me throughout", says Nelly. "They all knew how talented I was and how passionate I was about the circus, but I thought they just thought it was my hobby. I didn't realise that my (SOS) mum, my education supervisor or my brother would approve of me becoming a professional circus artist," says Nelly, smiling. "They gave me the strength to follow my dream."

So, in the autumn of 2006, Nelly enrolled at an institute in Yerevan which offers a three-year circus course.

Circling with the circus

With two years to go, Nelly still hasn't decided what she is going to specialise in. "In the first year we learned how to do everything from clown skills to how to perform on a trapeze. I can't say which of them is my favourite because I like them all. I do admit that I have to improve my juggling", says Nelly, picking up three tennis balls to demonstrate. She starts off well, but after one round, the balls fall. "Ah," she sighs. "It'll be a long summer."

In the hour or two when she's not working out or practicing juggling Nelly likes to watch the great circuses on TV. "I like Cirque du Soleil, Medrano, Krone, and the Ringling Brothers Circus. I don't have a favourite - each circus is so special and the artists are so talented that it's not easy to choose," says the girl who has a deep understanding for the hard work behind the perfect circus act.

In the future Nelly wants to join a major circus, but she won't be too disappointed if this doesn't happen. "I'll be happy if I can perform every night in front of a full house and every month in a new country. But, if I don't make it, I'll stay in Yerevan and teach circus arts or sports. As for the world, I guess I'll have to see it on my own," says our future acrobat, ending her story on a positive note.

SOS Children has been working in Armenia since 1988 and has a children's village based at Kotayk which gives a loving home to more than sixty children and over 300 children and families receive practical support through the SOS Social Centre.

You can support children like Nelly by becoming a child sponsor.