We stumble upon people who need us more often than we admit. It happens everywhere, but it's on the street that such meetings are most common. Then we choose: we look away and keep walking, we slip a coin into their hand with a twinge of shame, we hurry past, we step over them when they're sleeping right in front of the shop or bank we need to enter.
Miloud Oukili was different. A French musician and clown by vocation, he came to Bucharest in 1992, just after the fall of the dictatorship, and he stumbled upon a Romanian boy climbing out of a sewer grate—and he stopped.
He missed his train home. Instead, he talked to that boy and his friends—abandoned, exploited, drugged by despair, stealing by necessity. He lived with them, washed alongside them, searched for food with them. He shared what he knew how to do: play, sing, laugh, make others laugh, perform. This is how young clowns are born.
From that first encounter came Circo Parada, a troupe of sixty young people now performing across Romania, France, and Italy. The Parada Foundation was established, and in six years of work it has achieved significant results in social welfare, healthcare, school recovery, and job training for young people in Bucharest.
This story is known to many now. Our readers may well have heard it already. So why speak of it again?
Because Miloud and his young artists have built a deep friendship with our country. They were in Rome not long ago, and on Sunday, October 7th, you could find them in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, enlivening the afternoon with games and improvisations—accompanied by three brass bands, no less! That evening, they performed "Randagi," a beautiful show drawn from the book that tells their story.
And because we want to say: Merry Christmas! with deep affection to all these young Romanian street artists and to Miloud, who has taught us how to stumble, how to speak, how to share—just as a famous Samaritan did so many years ago.
More information
A Red Nose Against Indifference
In Italy, the Parada Foundation is supported by International Cooperation (COOPI), which has launched a solidarity campaign on its behalf with the slogan "A Red Nose Against Indifference" - Coopi Bucharest Youth - Via F. De Lemene, 50-20151 MILAN
- Maria Teresa Mazzarotto, 2001