Our cooperation partners
World Comics Finland has cooperated with a variety of organisations. We have chosen to work mainly with established organisations and groups rather than make the projects ”our own”. This has made it easier for us to concentrate on what we know well, i.e. how to apply the grassroots comics method in different NGO setups.
India
World Comics India (WCI) was registered in 2002 in Delhi with Cartoonist Sharad Sharma as Founder and Secretary General. The cooperation with WCI is very close and involves a magnitude of activities; workshops, seminars, exhibitions, publications, and a constant discussion on how to develop the work and strengthen the role of grassroots comics as a communication tool. The workshops in India now concentrate on training new comics trainers. They have involved grassroots organisations in Jharkhand, Rajasthan, M.P., Goa, Mizoram, Assam, Manipur, etc. NGO activists from Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Nepal have also participated. More about the workshops...
Cooperation with India started in 1997 in the South, where our cooperation partner was the Village Community Development Society (VCDS). In four annual workshops in Karasanoor, Tamil Nadu, VCDS activists, and activists from other grassroots organisations, were taught how to make comics and how to use them in their information campaigns.
Tanzania
Tanzania is an important development cooperation partner to Finland, and there is a lot of interaction between the countries. It was natural to start comics cooperation through the Finnish Tanzanian Friendship Society, and the first workshop was held in Morogoro in 1993. Since then, we have mainly worked with the professional cartoonists’ organisation TAPOMA (Tanzania Popular Media Association), as our cooperation partner. The concept of grassroots comics was introduced to the Tanzanian NGO community in 2003 in a workshop in Dar es Salaam. Several training of trainers (ToT) – workshops have been held after that. In 2005 grassroots comics was introduced as a communication tool in Njombe, in an hiv/aids control campaign, which was arranged by the Lutheran Church of Tanzania. More about the workshops...
Comics made in Tanzania have been published and exhibited on several occasions. See Exhibitions...
Mozambique
Our first contact with Mozambique was through the Finnish-Mozambique Friendship Society. We got funding for a comics workshop in 1998 from Finnish development funds. Later, we participated, among other, in a cultural week in Maputo, again funded by Finland, during which we arranged a workshop and an exhibition. When this groundwork had been done, we collaborated with UFF-Finland, which has extensive cooperation programs in Mozambique. In 2005 we arranged, together with UFF, grassroots comics ToT workshops for students of Teachers’ Training Colleges (ADPP) and for activists from various organisations. This training was a true success story, and the method of making grassroots comics has spread in more than 200 local workshops! More about the workshops...
Lebanon
The Finnish Psychologists for Social Responsibility (FPSR) requested for our assistance in a project which they have with their long-time cooperation partner Beit Atfal Assomoud (BAS) in Lebanon. BAS works for the welfare of the Palestinian refugees there. A grassroots comics workshop was held for young Palestinian community activists in 2005 in Bar Elias. The idea of producing and using these comics as a tool in information campaigns was well understood by the young refugees, and comics are still made in the camps, as the method is easily picked up by new ”artists”. More about the workshops...
Other cooperation – Sky is the limit
A great variety of projects and interaction has taken place, and new ideas for cooperation are presented all the time from all over the world. Comics artists from a number of countries such as:
...have visited Finland and taken part in events and exhibitions. In Morocco, World Comics Finland arranged a an anti-corruption comics workshop in 2000, together with Transparency International and the University of Casablanca. A workshop on comics in conflict resolution was held, at the invitation of Common Ground, in Jakarta in 2002, and grassroots comics have also been introduced to the organisation of working children in West Africa (together with Plan, Finland) and to Plan Togo. The grassroots comics concept has been introduced also to Estonia and Latvia.
In Finland, we give training in grassroots comics to a number of organisations active in development education, youth, and environment. We also cooperate with immigrants and refugees, and show them how to tell about their lives and problems in comics. Comics have become an important medium for self-expression in many small and alternative groups, and sky is the limit for what one can do with it!
