For those who have seen my previous artwork, you are probably a little confused by the image above. But hopefully, reading this will lessen your confusion and encourage to you to share knowledge with those around you.
Teddy Bear Hospital Southampton is a team of volunteers who aim to promote healthy living and reduce children's fear of healthcare professionals. Recently, they had announced a competition for designing an activity page for children, between 3 to 5-year-old. And its focus surrounds health education.
I am pretty sure that if I was asked about health education during primary school, I would have shared ideas on eating healthily and exercising regularly. And if you ask me now, I probably would still say these things but this time it'll be along with mental health.
Growing up in a community where thoughts on mental health was unheard, the topic became alien to me. Despite hearing it in school assemblies, outside these 15 minutes the topic remained silent around me.
I can't pinpoint when, but I realised that this topic is also alien to the adults within my community. And this realisation somehow seemed to connect the cluttered thoughts on the importance yet silence of this topic.
This then opened my eyes to the relationship between racial, ethnic minority families and health education.
Social and economic inequalities are disproportionally encountered by people of colour and one of the consequences of this misfortune incudes education in disadvantaged schools. Studies have shown that 30% of these students suffer literacy problems. And this is just a drop in the ocean.
These variations in education imitate those of health education. And so, their knowledge on how to maintain and improve their health - not limited to physical health but also mental and social - is likely to be limited. I'm not sure about you, but knowing that this imbalance exists is extremely frustrating.
Despite my desire to eliminate this problem altogether, I know that immediate change is not possible and collective work is required to ensure that all children are provided with the resources they need to achieve their full potential.
With these thoughts in mind, there was no hesitation as to whether I should produce a submission or not.
Within my design, I felt eager to focus on calmness. Since, this state is closely associated being in the present. By this, I mean that we are able to think clearer and appreciate what we have. I felt the best way to share information on calmness will be to provide examples, which can be easily understood. This simplicity will allow children to remember and, hopefully, implement these habits into practice.
To decide on these examples, I thought about the activities that have helped me stay calm. These include talking to my amma, painting, reading and going for a walk. However, I realise that we're all different - what works for me may not necessarily apply to someone else. So, it felt important to include a section within the worksheet that'll encourage children to think about activities that work for them.
The excitement of designing a worksheet had developed a mishmash of ideas. These were associated with the way I would illustrate the various activities and whether I was going to include a character/characters. To help unravel these thoughts, I started sketching some cartoons!
Some of you may look at these sketches and feel as though you have seen something similar before... and yes, you're right! In one of my previous blog posts I mentioned a TED talk, which shares simple instructions to drawing cartoons. By understanding these key steps, I have been able to produce various characters.
It was at this moment, I could see how attempting a wide range of techniques can help in ways that aren't predictable at the time of experimentation.
As I have mentioned before, I wanted to keep the design simple to allow the worksheet not to appear overwhelming. And so, I experimented with a few fonts that could be engaging yet easy to read - perhaps the tree trunk lettering is an exception!
You can also see that I, randomly, picked the name 'Molly'. Although my immediate reaction was that'll be a cute name for a cartoon character, the more I repeated 'Meet Molly' onto the page, a different cloud of thoughts appeared.
As a child, I was always on the search to find my name on those personalised mugs, journals and water bottles... anything really! But, I became disappointed and soon realised that the chances of me finding the name 'Pavethra' at a shop, in the UK, is pretty low. And I didn't want this to be the case for the coloured children staring down at my worksheet. With these thoughts in mind, it felt like I couldn't back to the name 'Molly' and so, I wrote down a bunch of Hindu names.
Whilst the name of the character may not represent someone in a classroom, it aims to give hope to these children, who are eager to find something that they can relate to.
This led to my next thoughts on colour, namely the ones associated with skin tone. I decided to go with a soft, dark brown skin tone for my developed character. Predominately, to remind children that every skin tone is beautiful. Daily reminders within books, worksheets and games can encourage children to avoid colourism. Not only will this prevent them from discriminating but allow them to be kind to themselves.
From the image above, you can see my developed character! Where my intentions to use to soft pinks and browns was to suggest patches of light falling onto the face, it has appeared as though I had tried to make the skin tone lighter. And I felt uncomfortable with this. So, I was certain to use a different combination - one with yellows and browns - to demonstrate areas of light around the cheeks and tip of the nose in my final design.
As for the surrounding text, the thin black lines help the letters to stand out and therefore, more readable. The use of multiple colours within these letters made me feel nostalgic about my childhood, as I thought back to the letter magnets at my grandma's home, which she had arranged perfectly - only for my siblings and I to clutter.
Having finished the worksheet design, I am most satisfied with its purpose. Knowing that a team of people are working together so that children in local schools within Southampton can continue to learn about health education, despite the pandemic, makes me happy. The design process has not only given me the opportunity to revisit cartoons but produce an outcome that I had not predicted.
I'd like to share this with children outside Southampton and so, I have put a link below for anyone to access this worksheet! Perhaps you have a child or younger sibling or cousin, who will enjoy this task. Where this worksheet is aimed at children, there is nothing to say that you can't have a think about what activities help you stay calm!
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