Balkissa, in the process of designing her drawing

24 July 2010: 20 Malian children have attended a training workshop in cartoon drawing, allowing them to use images to speak out against violence, as part of Plan’s Violence Against Children (VAC) project.

Abocar, a 15 year old boy who participated in the training, said: “Thanks to this training, I’ve learnt a lot about the techniques in cartoon drawing.”

Over the course of 5 days of training in Bamako, the group of children worked together to produce a cartoon made up of 5 stories, each one a maximum of 3 or 4 pages, on 5 different types of violence that children suffer in Mali, such as physical aggression or bullying.

Real success

Balkissa,  17 year old girl, pictured above-right, said: “We chose 5 different types of violence, namely excision, sexual harassment, bullying, exploitation of children and corporal punishment.”

She added: “We, the children, designed the storylines. For me, this was a real success.”

These skills will help the children raise awareness of violence against children through Plan’s VAC project, reaching a minimum of 5 million people across 7 countries in West Africa.

What’s more, the group is just 1 of at least 200 others from different children’s clubs, in particular those in Mali, that will receive training. The cartoons they draw will then be used to bring not only children’s rights to the public’s attention, but also the UN’s recommendations from its study on violence against children.

Amazing work

Fatoumata, finalising her cartoon

George, the children’s cartoon-drawing trainer, said: “I’m really impressed by the final result. In a 5 day workshop, they have done amazing work...I think that the children will be able to produce more cartoons thanks to the skills they’ve learnt.”

The training is part of a wider campaign to simplify the UN’s study, including through cartoons and animations, so families and communities can better understand the need to bring violence against children to an end.

Below is a gallery of some of the children's cartoons that they created during the training. The first 3 are about violence at work, the last one about violence in the family. Captions are in French.

Read more about Plan's work in Mali