The 222nd meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday,  Sept. 11, 2018 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, University Center, 63 Fifth Avenue, room UL 105 (lower level). Free and open to the public. Skype presentation.

Sharad Sharma on Grassroots Comics: By the people, for the people.

Via Skype, Sharad Sharma,  will share hundred of stories of common people using Grassroots Comics that tell a local story. They are a communication tool for all citizens that can transcend the barriers of language, literacy, media access, social classes and even resources. For these reasons, grassroots comics have been extremely successful in both rural and urban, remote and low literacy areas widely in Indian subcontinent. The simple format and participatory methodology made the grassroots comics popular worldwide. In last 20 years his organization World Comics has conducted more than 1200 comics workshop in most remote and disturbed areas of the globe and trained over 1,00,000 common people. He will also share the impact of his work. www.worldcomicsindia.com

Sharad Sharma is a cartoonist and Ashoka Fellow based in New Delhi, India and founder of World Comics Network. He was associated with many newspapers and magazines and also worked for TV. In mid-nineties he conceptualized the idea of Grassroots Comics.  He took the art of cartooning and comics to the rural hinterland of India and other parts of the globe. He has extensive experience from workshops with a variety of organizations in India and internationally. He has published several books and manuals.  He has been helping small organizations working in remote areas to initiate social campaigns using grassroots comics on issues like infanticide, foeticide, corporal punishment, local governance, paedophilia, stereotypes.  He was awarded Communication For Social Change Award by the University of Queensland, Australia and University of Massachusetts, USA.

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