Stepping ahead with Comics Power

A trainers’ workshop was organized with the workers of sSTEP (Society for Social Transformation and Environment Protection) from 23^rd to 25^th Dec 2010 at their office in Guwahati. The participants also included people from sSTEP Morigaon and development workers/volunteers from supporting organizations and children.

sSTEP is working with both urban and rural poverty issues in the Guwahati city, and these 18 enthusiastic participants created stories on the issues they encounter most often like child trafficking, environment sustainability issue in Morigaon, woes of the shelterless and so on. The children who participated in the workshop expressed the difficulties they face in their schools due to lack of basic facilities like bathroom and drinking water through the medium of comics. Trainer: Usha

Little Voices

sSTEP(Society for Social Transformation and Environment Protection), Guwahati organized a Grassroots comics Workshop from 21^st-23^rd Feb 2010 in Lakhra, Guwahati, with 30 school students of the area. Since Lakhra is very close to the National Highway and many industries have started cropping up all along its way, the place is very prone to environmental problems. Air and sound pollution being the biggest issues of the people, the workshop gave voices to the young minds of the area. The workshop was conducted by Daisy Sharma, Minakshi and Usha.

Apart from the environmental problems, the comics produced also brought to light a lot of other local issues such as elephant killing, witch hunting, alcoholism etc.

Community Creating Comics….

Children of different age groups came together to represent their community concerns at a Grassroots Comics Workshop at Morigaon from 15th to 17th November 2009 organized by sSTEP (Society for Social Transformation and Environment Protection), supported by ActionAid India. Trainers Usha and Hima helped the children articulate the issues that they encounter in their day to day lives. Most children stood up for inadequacies of their school, the road etc. Some comics like those based on forgoing education because of poor economic condition, lack of higher education facilities among others revealed the much prevalent concern over there- school dropout! Also, how these complicate the situation further and pave way for child labour could be understood as many children have to engage in stone-cutting.