K. Kannan

Information

Name:

K. Kannan

Age:

42 (2009)

Nationality:

Indian

Profession:

Communications professional

Country, city:

India, Delhi, New Delhi

Describe your background, your interest in development, your affiliation with ngos, etc.

A journalist by profession, I worked for 14 years (from 1990 to 2004) with one of India’s leading newspapers, The Hindu, covering a wide range of social subjects/themes. My interest in development issues resulted from my flair for writing on social initiatives started by NGOs across the country. For about four years between 1995 and 1999, I covered human rights issues dealing with denial of rights of the marginalized.

I also associated myself with activists in the disability sector initiating a series of seminars on media and disability. Starting in 2003, the initiative has resulted in the publication of a media training manual and the start of a media and disability communication course from Mumbai University in 2009.

I also was part of a group which looked at the media coverage on women’s issues in print and electronic media.

My affiliation with NGOs started out during my intial stint in journalism as an outcome of the need to wield the pen to champion social causes/issues. This led to a foray into the development sector when I joined Plan International, a child rights NGO in 2004. In Plan, I initiated a series of integrated media training workshops for children entitled "Amazing Kids".

Currently, I am working with Oxfam India as Communications Manager.

How did you first get in touch with World Comics and grassroots comics?

I do not remember when exactly I got in touch with World Comics but the interest in comics as a medium of development communication started as an offshoot of my interest in alternate/community media and in the belief that media can be a great tool for empowerment of the masses. Sharad’s four-panel format and the way he was using comics to train people at the grassroots to express themselves hooked me and I got involved first in terms of helping him organize workshops with various NGOs and then in terms of exploring innovative/serious social themes through world comics.

My association with grassroots comics led me to explore new things:

1. Communicating serious social themes through comics like HIV/AIDS, child rights, etc – We did workshops with children to produce messages on HIV/AIDS and this was later compiled into a book.
2. Initated a series of integrated media workshops with children along with World Comics India in which comics was introduced as part of a bouquet o fmedia tools –viz.print, radio, photography and digital media. Interestingly what children learnt they began sharing with other children and this opened the door for peer-to-peer training in the field. After three to four years of continuous work with children, peer training has been established as a way of reaching to maximum children and youth in rural communities.
3. Experience of using comics for campaigning on social issues – again we experimented with a project in Plan where we had children learning how to make comics and then using the issue to speak out against corporal punishment. The training on use of comics in the campaign mode led to a 10-day comics campaign against corporal punishment in villages in India’s Mahrajganj district in Uttar Pradesh.

What are your experiences of grassroots comics? Do you plan to use grassroots comics in your future activities?

My experience of grassroots comics spans across several experiments with World Comics India in which we used comics to empower communities to talk about issues affecting their lives. No other medium draws out people so powerfully in expressing their social concerns as comics does. This became more evident when we introduced as part of a bouquet of media tools in communities – the replicability of comics, the ease with which communities can use it with minimum resources all made it a powerful tool of communication that was easily adapted by communities. In stark contrast, even radio which is a powerful means of communication in rural areas needs a lot of investment.

In my experience, comics stays with the people as a medium of expression, becomes part and parcel of their media vocabulary and makes them feel empowered as they now have a tool to communicate, Once they learn the techniques, they do not need constant prodding of resource people from outside to come and tell them how they should use it or what they should do with it.

Experiments done by groups in rural areas show that once children and youth learn the techniques, they can use it to express their concerns on varied social issues. The technique becomes secondary to the tool of expression and the power that comes along with it and even though the product may be raw, the communication is complete. Long back, the communication specialist, Marshal McLuhan once said: "Medium is the message". Comics exemplifies that.

Finally, the campaign part. No other medium brings local issues to the fore so powerfully as comics and it also contextualses and localizes the IEC material that people need at all levels – by co-opting cultural factors, comics lend itself to adaptability and flexibility much more than other media.

I now plan to work with World Comics India to develop the understanding of international development NGOs on use of comics as a development communications tool.