African pencils
What it is and how it was bornAfrican Pencils is a tool for encouraging the awareness of African realities through the “minor arts” i.e. the comic strip and the cartoon. The working methodology is based on the cartoon’s ability to mediate information in direct and engaging ways, provoking questions whilst entertaining.
It is made in collaboration with CEFA - il seme della solidarietà, a non governmental organisation based in Bologna.
Aims
- To encourage a practical and up to date awareness of the leading teachers, through cartoon courses based in Bologna, Milan, Rome and Genoa;
- To raise awareness - among students of secondary and high schools – about the knowledge of African culture and its contemporary issues, as well as about its problematic issues;
- To produce a tool for developing knowledge of African contexts, with educational materials that can be used in the class room;
- To experiment and develop new educational methods for approaching diversity, emphasising the role of “minor arts” (comic strip and cartoon) which are widespread in Africa, and which become a “major tool” to access knowledge concerning local African realities;
- To programme an educational journey on diversity that ranges from simple forms (the cartoon) to complex issues (globalisation, immigration, urbanisation in the PVS…);
- To develop the potential for relational, cooperative and reciprocal acceptance in the interaction with the Other, through a better knowledge of African modernity and its popular culture, and with an informed respect towards reciprocal diversity.
Development of the project
After a period of research and exchange on the themes of education, diversity and integration, the project has focused mainly on the production of an educational guide and a series of exhibitions.
Through cartoon strips by African authors, the guide presents six pathways of discovery of African realities: refugees, health and society in Africa, markets and people, conflicts in Africa, the gender discourse in the Arab-Muslim world, Islam: rituals and traditions. The book is made for teachers and contains a large number of cartoons, comic strips, stories and educational sheets to further the understanding of the culture, economy and society of African countries.
The texts’ authors are: Massimo Repetti, Jolanda Guardi, Michel Agier and Marc-Éric Gruénais.
The exhibition is made up of 20 canvases (50x70 cm) with colour reproductions of the cartoons and comic strips; it retraces the 5 educational pathways explored in the guide.
Project leader
CEFA - il seme della solidarietà, Bologna, Italy.
Partner
- Lai-mo soc. coop., Sasso Marconi, Italy;
- Associaçao regresso das caravelas, Lisbona, Portugal;
- CICAT Association, Paris, France.
Buy it now!
- To purchase the edition of African Pencils go to the information sheet and place your order.
- To purchase the African Pencils educational guide go to the information sheet and place your order.
- For information on the hiring and setting up of the exhibition write to: info@laimomo.it
or call:
Tel. (+39) 051 840166.
For information:
- Lai-momo soc.coop.
Via Gamberi, 4
40037 Sasso Marconi (Bo)
Tel. (+39) 051 840166
Fax. (+39) 051 6790117
E-mail: progetti@laimomo.it
- CEFA
Tel. (+39) 051 520285
www.cefa.bo.it.
Progetto finanziato dal Ministero per gli Affari Esteri Italiani.