Monday 12 July 2010

Blog of the week: World Comics India


Not really a blog this time, but a fantastic website. I may sit comfortably in my flat reading comics like Palestine and Persepolis romanticising the struggles of people in oppressive situations and impoverished areas but World Comics India as part of the World Comics Network are actually seeking to use comics as a driving force for social change and to give those communities who could otherwise not articulate their problems a voice. Started in the early nineties when political cartoonist Sharad Sharma was producing posters for a literacy campaign in Rajasthan, after nine years of organising comic making workshops in the communities across India, they decided to go global and registered as an official organisation. World Comics India is a collective of grassroots activists, students, journalists, cartoonists, and artists, using comics as a communicative tool as well as a means of self expression. The groups main aim is to educate communities in creating their own wallposter comics for use in grassroot local campaigns. They provide training to staff and activists for NGOs (non governmental organisations), and have collaborated with Oxfam, Unicef, Pride, World Vision, Save The Children and many more worth while organisations. They publish anthologies on development as well as training and educational manuals in a variety of languages. Their site is pretty comprehensive but upon further investigation there is a blog too, where you can follow the progress of the project regularly. The blog is here and the site is here.

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