I want to send my warmest greetings, much love and so much gratitude to you all. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you do - your love, your clowning, your music, your creativity, your inspiration, your healing, your camaraderie, your support, your teaching. For it all.

And I'd like to say a particular thank you to Alexander for his patience with me, and to all who are working with him to bring this amazing gathering together. May you all have much love, joy and camaraderie in these days.

As I think of you all gathering there, I wonder - can it really be over 40 years ago now that I met a little girl named Hazel? It was late at night, way too late for such a small girl to be roaming the dark downtown streets of our city. But she and her older siblings were drawn into the bright circle of a theatre, where I was clowning at an all-night fundraiser for a children's charity.

I am sure that the children are the biggest teachers of those of us who have clowned for them, alongside them.

Certainly it was Hazel who helped me see, quite suddenly and clearly, that Robo's clutziness, cluelessness, naivete could empower her. She knew how to sit on a chair - and could teach me. She knew how to open the door - and could show me. She knew how to take off the coat, put on the hat.... In a world where racism, sexism, adultism and classism normally tried to bind Hazel in a web of oppressions, it was Hazel who now, with me, had the power, capacity, knowledge. This is the "turning of the tables" that clowning can offer. I saw that vividly - and thought... "where are there people who are most deeply disempowered? Who most need this turning of tables?"

Hospitalized children, of course. Statistically children in hospital are more likely to be from marginalized groups. And of course they are disempowered by illness, by pain, by the hierarchy of the hospital.

So, emboldened by what Hazel had taught me, I (a normally shy person) called up the Children's Hospital in Winnipeg, and told them (I can't believe that I just TOLD them this) that they needed a clown on staff and it needed to be me. I went for an interview (in character) and I went up on the wards that day.

And now we need to thank Eva. Eva was a 7 year old with an autoimmune disease that was stealing her life. She was a long term resident of the hospital, and she loved Robo and Robo loved her.

Because really, the basis of all that we do, as health care clowns, is love, isn't it?

It was Eva whose response - when the hospital took a gamble on hiring me for the summer - convinced everyone that this was a program that needed to be permanent. She wrote her first ever letter (to Santa) to ask Santa to bring Robo warmer gloves. She laughed at the clown when she was too sick to laugh. She held Robo's hand as she left this world.

We all have stories like this, don't we. All of you there, you have these stories too. I hope that you share them with each other. If I were with you now, I'd ask you to pause for a moment, to turn to the person beside you, and to share a story of love. For that is the core of the clown.

My last, huge gratitude is to all of you amazing, passionate, committed people who continue to grow this field in creative, unique and powerful ways. In these times when so many are experiencing much pain and suffering, in so many places, you are the harbingers of a new world. A world of love, of laughter, of joy, of upturning of hierarchies of power. May this new world come soon.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely
Karen (aka Robo the Clown)