Catching the stories in fishermen's village...by Nida Shams (Karachi, Pakistan)

World Comics organized a 3 day Comics workshop from 19-21 May 2009 in collaboration with WWF Pakistan at Wetland Centre, Karachi. The workshop was conducted by Nida Shams, representing World Comics in Pakistan.

Participants were from various walks of life like students, teachers and community mobilizers of Kakapeer community schools (Kakapeer is a fishermen village located at Sandspit beach in Karachi). These nineteen participants came up with wonderful stories on their day-to-day life problems like water, electricity, bomb blasts and strikes. Most of the children made comics on their real life stories. Teachers took keen interest in the training and found this tool useful for teaching purposes. Now children are planning to train their friends in summer vacations!

Please visit our blog http://boltilakeerain.blogspot.com/

Distant voices...by Usha Dewani (Assam, India)

A Grassroots Comics workshop was organized by Usha of New Ways group in association with Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti, Guwahati. The other trainers were Minakshi Gogoi, Sushmita Lahkar.
35 inmates of State home for Women participated in the workshop including 1 volunteer from Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti. The participants were minor girls, who are homeless, trauma struck or rescued victims of social vices like trafficking, prostitution, child labour etc.
The objective of the workshop was to help the participants express their suppressed feelings through the medium of comics. Majority of the participants could not read or write and the workshop was meant to bring a breakthrough in their usual way of communicating their concerns...

Setting about motion...

As a follow up to the “No Tobacco “ drive, Manas and Usha decided to use the comics prepared on tobacco Control in the workshop with VHAA in a place that has a huge number of youth getting dragged into the addiction. They, along with other members of New Ways group planned to have a Grassroots Comics exhibition in Gauhati University campus in the Youth festival 09. The idea was to spread awareness on the different causes and impact of tobacco consumption among the people, especially youth and to inform people about the litigation associated with the violation of the existing legal acts and provisions.

The response of the people was unbelievable! Young boys and girls thronged to read the comics displayed and commented on how and what they liked. Some admitted that the comics informed them of new things and showed faith in the medium to be powerful enough to generate public participation. There were also suggestions to take action against the shops selling tobacco and gutkha in the University campus after reading the comics on the same topic.

Read more on http://nayidishayein.blogspot.com/

Tobacco in Four Square ….by Usha and Manas (Assam, India)

After the Delhi workshop Manas happened to come to Guwahati and as a part of the  programme, we decided to do a workshop together here. So this happened! A Grassroots Comics Workshop was conducted by trainers Usha Dewani from New Ways Group and Manas Baruah from World comics India in association with Voluntary Health Association of Assam. The theme of the workshop was tobacco control.    A total of 16 people participated in the workshop. The participants were a mixed group of members of NGOs, Volunteers from VHAA and recovered victims of tobacco and drug abuse. The participants came from various districts of Assam and represented various age groups. The chief aim of the workshop was to propagate Grassroots Comics as an alternate media to express their concerns, ideas and voices on issues important for them and the community. The workshop was designed to bring out the different aspects of tobacco consumption among the people. Two sub-trainers, Sushmita Lahkar and Shivajyoti Das Baruah from New Ways also assisted in the workshop. The workshop served to help the participants realize how they can prepare comics themselves, to bring out their own people’s issues and set about motion to motivate them to work upon these problems.

The Team !

Grassroots Media for Social Change!

Eighteen participants from different parts of South Asia expressed a range of concerns through comics phrased in their local languages. These participants working in different themes in their respective areas not only produced comics but as trained another batch of 22 participants.

The Grassroots Media Course on using comics for social change was held in Delhi in April 2009. The course was done in collaboration with World Comics, Pravah Learning Voyages and Commutiny- The Youth Collective. The course kicked of with a Comics Workshop. It was facilitated by Sharad Sharma (World Comics India) who along with Leif Packalen (World Comics Finland) shared fantastic experience with World Comics from across the world on conducting comics campaign while Ashraf Patel (Pravah and  commutiny) offered different perspective on youth development.

 

Akokla from Nagaland; Usha, Manas and Hima from Assam; Chandan and Jitendra from MP; Shashi, Prangya and Bharati from Orissa; Ishwar and Visheshwar from Chhatisgarh; Madhav and Sarika from Maharashtra; Shivkumar from Karnataka, Ritika and Kritika from Delhi, Robin from Nepal and Nida Shams from Pakistan are the young minds who participated,  while two WCI seniors Sunder Mohan  Murmu and Lakindra Nayak from Jharkhand observed the whole process.

 

Following the workshop the participants would be organizing social campaigns and comics workshops in their communities over the next few weeks using comics for social change. So, watch this space for more from the field! 

Read full report