With the same starting point (September 2021), the four Talking Bubbles countries took off on this adventure which was to launch a Comic Strip Competition.
ADRA Czech Republic, more experienced in these ventures, as they have been running the competition since 2016, had the period for collecting works until 31 October. In good students‘ fashion, it was in the last week that most of the 151 entries received arrived in Prague. The five categories were filled and the works were evaluated by a committee full of professional illustrators (Jakub Plachý and Terega Šajnerová). Thanks to their participation, many bookshops donated books, which could be converted into prizes for the winners.
The winners‘ ceremony took place at Café Prostoru in Prague, attended by the well-known Czech comic author Petr Kopl. There, it was possible to see the works of the 5 winners.
In Slovenia, the competition ended on 31 December (2021). With the dynamics of the Webinar, supporting the competition, this activity was very well received by secondary school teachers, youth leaders, and artists who quickly spread the competition to an even wider audience of young people. The competition ended with 102 entries collected, in all 5 categories, with a special preference for the „Our Planet“ category. The Slovenian competition came up with very inspiring ideas to work towards a fairer society.
In the westernmost country, the competition „closed“ its doors on 31 January. With a difficult start, the young people from Portugal participated with 5 works, each of them distributed along the 5 thematic categories. To attract more young people to participate in the campaign an Instagram direct was held, with two Portuguese authors and illustrators, Marco Taylor and André Caetano, who shared their artistic visions and the importance of the arts when we want to pass messages about issues that can change the world.
The last to end was the Polish competition. It ran until 28 February and had 31 participants, from youth between 16 and 20 years old. The Jury committee consisted of established author Berenika Kołomycka and co-organizer of Warsaw of Comics Festival – Paweł Timofjejuk, who is also the owner of comic publishing house Timof Comics, donor of comic book awards for the winners. The contest was organized in partnership with Warsaw of Comics Festival and was organized under the patronage of ONZ UNIC/Warsaw. During the implementation of the competition, we carried out webinars for teachers, librarians, and youth workers who later used materials from them and carried out workshops in their school or library, contributing to the spread of competition among young people.
Overall, we can say that the Talking Bubbles International Comic Strip Competition was a success. With different starting points, harder starts or the need for more youth engagement, each country did its best to motivate teenagers to be a voice in achieving the SDGs. And the messages each country collected leave us with hope for the future so that together we can tackle global challenges.
Congratulations to all participants!