Comics workshop offers outlet for youth to sketch stories of community resilience

AMMAN — Comicipate is a youth-oriented comic training organisation, which held their third annual workshop last week, with community resilience as this year’s focus.

The workshop, which lasted around a week, is funded by the embassy of Spain in Jordan and organised by I-Dare, which trains young people interested in drawing comics.

The art of drawing comics “has long been in the Arabic culture through the work of Naji Alali and other well-known artists, but it somehow no longer receives any attention”, General Director of I-Dare Iyad Aljaber told The Jordan Times.

“Many of the students attending this workshop are engineers; they tell us that they have been pressured by their parents or society to follow a certain ‘serious’ career path but that their heart lies with art,” he added: 

The work of the students participating in the workshop will be published in a comic book called “Ya’ni”, which followed the theme of peace in 2017, justice in 2018 and community resilience in this year's edition.

One of the participants, 26-year-old Mohannad Abbadi, based his comic on the true story of a Syrian refugee named Abu Ahmed who used to be a singer, but then lost his sight during the war and now sells tissues in downtown Amman.

“I think community resilience means operating as one. We can only operate as one if we know the stories behind each person. Only then can we be compassionate and empathetic, and only then can we work together,” he told The Jordan Times when sharing his inspiration for the comic.

Comic expert Yorgos Konstantinou, who was one of the workshop’s facilitators, said he “sees great talent and great potential” in the trainees.

“What surprises me every time I come to give the workshop is that these amazing ideas and true talent flow out of youngsters who are not only underappreciated and neglected in their communities, but are even criticised for what they do. I can only imagine what they could do if given the right support and recognition,” he told The Jordan Times at the workshop’s closing event.