The circus is coming to town for a number of at-risk children and youth in Surrey.

SOS Children's Village is launching a "social circus" program with Cirque du Soleil and the Vancouver Circus School to teach kids life skills like resilience and teamwork.

"We do human pyramids, so they learn to climb on each other, there's the physicality," Cirque du Soleil's Samuel Jabour told On The Coast host Stephen Quinn. "But what are we really working [when] doing pyramids? We're working how they learn to communicate, how they learn to trust each other, to trust their own body."

"If you put a kid, that's say, had a rough past … and you put him in front of 200 people and he's getting claps, what are we working there? We're working him, his own confidence, his self-esteem, learning to work with the group towards a common target: to achieve a show."

Jabour participated in a Montreal social circus as a teenager, and it has since become his life. He works for Cirque training other trainers for social circus.

He says circus camps like these are different from other summer camps because of the variety kids get.

They have to work on their own, in pairs and in larger groups. They have to use their bodies as well as their creativity.

He says circus can help youth in all kinds of situations, including South Africa, where he trained a group of HIV-positive children.

"At the first workshop, 30 minutes was enough for them in terms of physicality and energy that they can give," he said. "After two years, we would see them do a 45-minute show with the trampoline and do two hours of workshop no problem."

"The aim of the program was to show that kids, even with HIV that take their medication … can live as well as other kids."

Cirque du Soleil's social circus program is a pilot program that will last for two months.