Grassroots comics workshops in November - December 2013

Deep concentration in the group of teachers in Tampere 

Comics as a multicultural tool for teachers

A comics workshop for teachers started in November and will end in January. In all, the participants will have four days of tuition, with a considerable amount of assignments between the tuition days. The idea is that the teachers will run their own comics workshops in their schools. The workshop is arranged by the Tampere Summer University and funded by the Finnish National Board of Education. It is designed to introduce comics as a tool for a multicultural approach to education. Leif Packalen of World Comics Finland and Eila Isotalus of Unidos, are tutors at the course.

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Grassroots comics for social services students

We were requested to run comics workshops for the social services students at Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Tikkurila campus, in December. 36 students, in two groups, took part in the workshops. The workshops were a part of their studies in how to use visual means in social services. The students made comics about different social issues, such as student welfare, Christmas shopping craze, loneliness, attitude towards socially marginalized people, etc.

Below a detail from a comic made by student Nico Vera:

A detail from Nico Vera's comic about burnout

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Heidi Leino of World Comics Finland (middle) and Anni Pietarinen
(standing) of Nuorten Akatemia were tutors at the workshop.

 Grassroots comics combined with drama for global education in schools

Nuorten Akatemia (The Finnish Youth Academy) has been running a highly appreciated school visitor programme with grassroots comics since 2009 with support from the Foreign Ministry. In 2013 - 2014 the programme was expanded to include a drama workshop, which will precede the comics workshops in the schools.

Heidi Leino and Leif Packalen ran the comics training workshop for 25 school visitors in Helsinki in December. Heidi also worked as a tutor for the drama part of the workshop.