This September, the world is getting together at the United Nations to ratify Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – solutions for problems across the board like poverty, inequality, disease, and lack of access to education and other resources. Pretty big stuff. But in order for whatever rules and regs the UN and world governments come up with to work, regular global citizens like you and me need to be made aware of their importance, impact, and how they’ll work. How do you relay important information across language barriers and diverse education levels? Through comics, of course!
At least, that’s the thinking behind Comics Uniting Nations, a project of Reading With Pictures, a non-profit specializing in educational comics, that aims to inform people about each of the SDGs through a collection of seventeen short comic stories.
Josh Elder, founder of RWP, has this to say about the project:
It was the most fortuitous chance meeting of my life. Reading With Pictures was founded on the belief that comics are a kind of universal visual language, one that’s ideal for communicating important concepts to diverse audiences. Concepts don’t get any more important than the Global Goals, and audiences don’t get any more diverse than the entirety of the human race.
That diversity will be reflected in the team that creates the stories, and will be published in multiple languages. Natabara Rollosson, a producer who coordinates events for the United Nations, has this to say about the partnership between the UN and RWP:
Having a team of artists from different countries around the world, all collaborating and contributing content for the cause, seemed like a perfect metaphor for the United Nations. With everyone in the industry cooperating for the global good, the name Comics Uniting Nations encapsulated the spirit and became the banner title for our project.
In order to create the comics and be able to distribute them free of charge both digitally and in print, RWP is crowdfunding via Kickstarter. So, if you believe that comics can help encourage change, and want to ensure that these particular comics remain free so they can be distributed to everyone, check out their campaign!
Who says comics can’t change the world?
(image via Reading With Pictures)
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