Our objective is to open up a debate in the society on the issue of gender equality and bring about a change in South Asian region. Sixteen Grassroots Activists from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal will be trained as Grassroots Comics Trainers to further engage many more female activists/ students in their respective countries to democratise the women voices through the medium of grassroots comics and campaigns. A 6 days trainer’s workshop will be organized in Delhi later this year. Comics have the power of unleashing the potential of self-expression and community action.
South Asian Comics Activists for Gender Justice [1] from Sharad Sharma [2] on Vimeo [3].
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Delhi
Describe the specific community with whom you will be working.
World Comics will select sixteen NGOs activists working in four South Asian countries. Each organisation will be asked to send two participants. These organization will be selected on basis of their commitment towards this issue. The project will be unfolded in two phases. In the first phase participants will be trained in Delhi and in the second phase, they will organize small workshops, publish posters, initiate small campaigns and interact and develop network with other NGOs and fellow comics trainers in South Asia.
The Comics Activists will further engage other NGOs activists, students, teachers, women groups etc.
They will use social networking websites, blogs to document project related developments. These tools will also be used for the networking of SAsian group.
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
A weeklong trainers workshop will be organised in Delhi. Here participants will be acquainted to the medium of grassroots comics, and will learn to translate their stories into wall poster and strip comics. Participants will learn and develop stories on gender discrimination, equality, rights and laws on women, life and success stories.
During the workshop participants will learn how to run grassroots comics workshops, exhibition and initiate campaign on the issue of gender equality. These will be uploaded on blogs, SN websites and also will be distributed to local newspapers.
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established that will contribute to the success of the project.
World Comics India initiated the concept of Grassroots Comics and has been working in the field of development communication since last one decade. WCI has organised around 1000 comics workshops and trained over 30,000 common people. World Comics has already established Network in south asian countries and organised a number of workshop on gender issue in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and India. Now a team of trainers will be prepared to achieve it.
How many participants do you think will be involved in your project?
In first phase sixteen trainers will be trained.
During the second phase of the project each trainer’s group will run small workshops and further train 50-60 participants. These workshop will be to produce comics wallposters addressing all the aspects of the problem. After each workshop participants will exhibit these comics in schools, colleges and community and will reach to hundreds of people.
By uploading these comics over different web based platform they will reach to huge amount of people in their respective countries and worldwide.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
World Comics India will impart skill of making grassroots comics, how this medium can be used as development communication tool and how effectively this can be used to initiate campaign in most cost effective manner.
Participants will be taught the art of story telling. Later technical sessions on comics making, reproduction and distribution will be followed. In next sessions they will be trained as trainers and lastly learn how to initiate comics campaigns.
The future workshop, training, exhibition and campaign plans will be designed. They will also learn how to digitize and use online platform to widely distribute the comics stories and open debate on the issue.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
Workshop will be organised in a training center situated in central Delhi and participants will stay during the first phase of the program.
In second phase trained trainers will use their own office premises, internet and other facilities to finish the rest of the task.
What is your current relationship with the community with whom you plan to work? What makes you the most appropriate individual or organization to implement this project?
World Comics India initiated the concept of Grassroots Comics and has been working in the field of development communication since last one decade. WCI has organised around 800 comics workshops and trained over 20,000 common people. World Comics Network has also organised a number of workshop on gender issue in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Brazil and India. WCI published one anthology of India, Pak and Sri Lanka comics in 2005 titled “Half World Four Frames. Also organised one powerful campaign on the right of girl child. This campaign created ripples in the most conservative society of western Rajasthan, India.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
This is a well thought of plan and moreover World Comics is active in these countries and have good relationship with partner organisation and don't see any such difficulty it might face in implementation in program.
The only concern we have is with visa related issues. Specially participants from pakistan may face some difficulty in getting visa, that can be managed if we plan things in advance and hence we have propose the workshop in the last quarter of the year.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
During the first phase: we will train participants as trainers and they will learn to produce comics wallposters and learn skill of a trainer. In second phase:The project will be considered successful only if trainers would use this skill post their return to their respective countries. The selection process itself would ensure that their host organization send such participants who have commitment to take up the task and finish it, also host organization support for the implementation of the plan would be crucial. World Comics will be in touch with host organisations and monitor the process.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2013?
October, 2013
Trainer's Workshop New Delhi 16 participants
November2013-January, 2014
Local Activities in 4 countries Workshop, Exhibition, campaigns
January-March-2014
More workshops at local level and online and newspaper distribution, blogging and south asian networking/ discussion etc
Detail a specific budget of up to $4,000 USD for operating costs.
S. No. Head Amount
1 Travel cost of Participants 1,000
2 Food and Accommodation 1,200
3 Workshop related cost 800
4 2 Resource Persons, co-ordination and Report Writing Fee 1,000
TOTAL 4,000
Besides the microgrant funding, what other resources and support are you seeking for your project to ensure its success?
Networking in these countries, support through web media and help to channelize the local resource in these countries.
Contact name
Sharad Sharma
Organization
World Comics India