With school bell ringing, comic book ‘Little Master’ helps children fight Covid-19 misinformation

10,000 copies of the book will be distributed in underprivileged areas of Karachi

An Urdu-language comic book Little Master is set to be released in Karachi on Monday to help children get awareness on safety measures amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

The book, published by Mehrdar Art & Production (MAP), talks about the story of Ahmed, a young boy from Karachi’s Lyari area, who has taken on a mission to learn about the coronavirus to help the people of his community and society safe from the infectious disease.

The book focuses children as its audience. It is written by Inam Hasan. while Umair Najeeb Khan, the creator of Pakistan’s first superhero comic book series Paak-Legion, has done the illustrations.

“Books are still the best method to convey a message to the masses, thus this comic book will provide maximum Covid-19 related information to the children and counter all sorts of misinformation and myths about the infectious disease,” said Muhammad Faheem, documentary filmmaker and MAP founder.

According to the details shared in an official statement, the focus of the story is a young boy Ahmed who is famously known by 'little master' within the community as he focuses on observing and learning before coming to resolutions.

The story also highlights the little master’s journey on developing an understanding of the pandemic and trying to spread awareness on following SoPs, countering extreme narratives spread due to the pandemic, and trying to maintain peace within different socio-economic classes, cultures, belief systems, and casts living within the community. Thus the message is Inter-faith harmony.

Team Mehrdar Art & Production aims to print 10,000 copies of the six-chapter comic book to be distributed amongst less privileged neighourhood of all the districts of Karachi which includes Lyari, Mauripur, Ibrahim Hyderi, Korangi, Surjani, etc in order to reach out to young children and students to learn and develop an understanding of pandemics and epidemics.

Talking about the idea, Faheem said that when the virus broke out here in Pakistan, "we noticed the rise in community strife, blame games among communities, we felt there is a need to start a counter-campaign to promote inter-faith harmony amongst the different communities living in Karachi".

“Therefore, a campaign was designed, Hum Sab Saath, Corona ke Khilaaf (All of Us Together Against the Coronavirus), the campaign addressed the situation through posters, social media campaigns, and talks by community leaders,” Faheem said.

The campaign about Covid-19 and how it has been really difficult for people to navigate through the pandemic in Pakistan and in some ways caused unrest amongst different sections of the society. "We talked about these issues through print and social media campaigns," illustrator Umair Najeeb Khan.

He went on to add that Little Master is the last part of this campaign which "is very rare for local campaigns we see here".

"What drew me to the project was that it is an awareness campaign that catered to all sorts of the audience, including children through comparatively newer mediums like comics in Pakistan."

Talking about the book, he added that the idea of the comic book was sudden as when we came to know that schools are going to open, it was realised that there is a dire need of a book, a sort of guide for children to read during the pandemic.