Comics take over the neighbourhood

This book is a game changer.
Read it in my youth and never
looked back. 

I am in year two of my comics world domination right now, main themes being learning and teaching. 

Last week I hammered out an application for funding for a youth-led course to explore the neighbourhood through comics and the arts in the language of their choice. A local institution had approached me, after someone passed them my neighbourhood web comic, asking if I had any ideas for partnerships. Um, after 20 years in public service, yes, I have ideas! So, they signed on to provide the  event space. 

I have been learning about how young people can steer such opportunities for their own empowerment. My neighbourhood has an alarming number of youth and children in poverty, so the funding will pay my fee so that we can make the course free for them, but all Berlin youth twelve and up are welcome. We hope kids from the co-located Queer Centre will jump in. Drop-in format for those who cannot commit to a weekly course. 

I do not feel really educated enough to offer this course, but you have to start somewhere, and when the institution approached me, I reckoned I better bury the imposter syndrome. Few foreigners are engaged in the community despite us being a huge proportion of the community. So, you know, feel the fear and do it anyway (I loved that book).

I pep talk myself by reminding myself  that I studied creative writing and I have organised lots of events, plus I make comics myself. The other piece, the teaching piece, that's scary, but I did actually teach for two years before joining the foreign service. At the embassy where I served last, I ran an education program. Now, it was my team - not me - that actually met students in an interactive way and I only got pulled in as the suit with a speech. But still, it was good experience. I've got books on teaching art and on sociocultural programming on the coffee table. I have friends who know stuff. I've mothered - as an active verb - for over 12 years. The worst that can happen is that the course sucks. But the next one would be better.

So I hope I get good news this spring once the jury meets.