Cartoons being developed for children’s social grooming

Gogi’s creator talks about environment, water conservation

In order to convey a message on social issues to young impressionable minds it is necessary to use a medium or format whereby not only is the message delivered but a lasting impression is formed in the young minds

One of the best forums to reach out to children is through animated messages or cartoons

This is the method adopted by Nigar Nazar the creator of Gogi a popular cartoon character.

Animated messages of clean environment, water conservation and waste management can help in social grooming of children, said Nazar.

She was speaking at an interactive session with the young participants of the children art summer camp at the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA) on Tuesday.



Nigar introduced Gogi as an inspirational person contributing to the conservation of environment and water. She also showed some animations reflecting discriminate behaviour of some people towards the nature and environment through which the message of clean environment, water conservation and solid waste management were highlighted. She also screened some animations related to voters’ education.

The key messages were that every eligible citizen shall cast vote to the right candidates. The women shall also cast their vote by their own choice and preference.

Nazar also conducted a drawing session with the children. She introduced easy techniques to start with making the cartoons based on the Urdu alphabets.

Talking about Nazar and her work, the PNCA senior consultant Munir Ahmed said Gogi is the only Pakistani cartoon character known abroad for its social and environmental education. And, it is by our first Pakistani woman cartoonist Nigar Nazar who intentionally opted to work with the children of different age groups on their social grooming. Cartoon characters and out of class education is imperative for children to make them socially and environmentally relevant.

Children of the age group 6-16 to buff their creative skills in the summer camp that includes basic education of the drawing, painting, poster designing, puppet-making, singing, folk dancing, photography, Urdu calligraphy, basics of film making and theatre acting.

Several competitions are being conducted as well to examine the progress made by the participating children. Level of engagement of every child in every activity will be assessed to gauge the learning of every participant at the end of the three-month long summer camp.

Every week-end will be enriched with joyful puppet shows for the participants to make them learn the lessons of life for the social learning.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 25^th, 2018.