My first comic book has finally been published!
When I was working for the Legal Assistance Centre in Namibia, one of the most interesting projects I worked on was with the AIDS Law Unit to develop a comic book that would explain to health care providers assisting people living with AIDS what their rights were and what resource support networks were available to them. My contribution was mainly writing the script, since I have absolutely no artistic skill in comic drawing.
It's obviously no Marvel Comic, but I did find comic books to be an effective form of raising public awareness about an issue. People might not want to read lengthy reports, but they'll read comic books. When I volunteered at the Bernhard Noordkamp Centre after school program tutoring in English, I used the Legal Assistance Centre's comic books as English textbooks, getting the kids to read the comic books and quizzing them on their reading comprehension. The kids loved the comics and were pleased that they were able to take copies of the comic books home. At the same time, I was getting them to think about important issues like schoolyard bullying and domestic violence.
You can read the whole comic book here: http://www.lac.org.na/projects/alu/Pdf/careproviders.pdf
The LAC's Gender Research and Advocacy Project's comic books have been a big success and have even been shortlisted on the Women Deliver 50 awards, rewarding innovative projects that deliver for women and girls. You can check out GR&AP's impressive collection of comic books explaining Namibian laws on gender equality here.
