Animating education: Use comics to beat intolerance in society

Activist highlights the role that animated books can play in children’s education.

ISLAMABAD: Comics hold great potential for educating children. But the medium is extremely underutilised in Pakistan’s education system, according to activist and cartoonist Fauzia Minallah. 

She is the author of “Amai - The Bird of Light”, an animated story promoting multiculturalism and peace that recently won an award at the Global Junior Challenge 2012 in Rome for the innovative use of technology.

Peace Education and Development Foundation Executive Director Sameena Imtiaz said, “If we reform curriculum to promote understanding of diversity and respect for others, children will learn tolerance from an early age and will bring a changed mindset.”

This is precisely what “Amai- Bird of Light” and Minallah’s other animated book, “Sadako’s Prayer”, aim to do.

Children, Minallah said, are highly receptive to animated works as they learn important life lessons without the perceived drudgery of studying.

She explained, “The problem is that until literature that promotes tolerance becomes part of the national curriculum, we will not be able to change our society, which has become increasingly intolerant and violent.”

Last year, “Sadako’s Prayer” was translated into Torwali, spoken in Kohistan.

The book, which tells the story of a young victim of the Hiroshima nuclear holocaust, was widely distributed and remains in extensive used from grades two through ten, according to Zubair Torwali, the head of Idara Barae Taleem-o-Agahi, Kohistan.

Though Sadako, the character in the book, is Japanese, children readily identified with her and her resilience, he said. “Students of all ages and even adults pick up this book and their faces light up,” Torwali added.

Most notably, the translated book has helped preserve Torwali, an endangered language.

“This book has helped us immensely in promoting a mother language based education system. There aren’t many eye-catching books in our country, let alone in Torwali, and more are needed,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 5^th, 2012.