One day, while I was teaching in a squatter camp school outside Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, the World Bank distributed to every household in the camp a 2 page leaflet about a self help housing scheme. Most people could not read well and asked me to explain what it all meant. I was so upset that I went to the World Bank and suggested that if they really wanted to communicate with the people in the community they had to use a language they could understand. "Why not make a puppet show or produce a comic strip about the topic," I suggested. They thought this was a good idea and so 'Family Molefi's housing problems and how they can be solved' was born.

This was the first of many comic strip books and also the beginning of my interest in combining art and education. I also realised the need for local artists to learn the skills of communicating visual messages and I began to work as a visual aids production workshop facilitator. Years later, when I came to England, I joined ‘Health Images’, a charity organisation specialising in visual aids production workshops.

Game design in Cote d' Ivoire

In the developing countries workshop participants usually come from local NGO's working at community level in health, rural and social development, environmental conservation, women’s issues, water and sanitation and other sectors. The workshops adopt a people-centred, participatory approach to training, so that participants' expectations and their needs form the basis for the course content.
Pictures can help people otherwise excluded from development planning to make their voices heard.

Working with flannel board figures, Cote d'Ivoire

Particularly where literacy rates are low, people-centred pictures can play an important role in stimulating discussion, raise critical awareness and help people to make local decisions and take action.
Local community members produce their own pictures, such as discussion starters, educational comic strips, educational games, picture cards, community maps and flannel boards. We also show people how to make puppets and at some workshops we include silk-screen printing to mass-produce images or as an income generating activity. No running water or electricity is needed for these workshops.

Workshops in developing countries last between 2-4 weeks.
Workshops in the UK are from 2 hours to 3 days