A FUNDRAISING campaign to create a new teaching resource for schools across Wales and England, launched by an artist living in Llanbrynmair, has raised over £2,165.

Nicky Arscott will be illustrating a comic based on the poetry of Eric Ngalle Charles, from Cardiff, who claimed asylum in Wales in 1999 after fleeing persecution in Cameroon.

The comic will be translated into Welsh by Casia Wiliam, the Bardd Plant Cymru (Welsh-language children’s poet laureate), and published bilingually as a free downloadable teaching resource for schools by PositiveNegatives, a charity which adapts personal testimonies into art, advocacy and education materials and which has worked extensively with a range of organisations such as The Guardian, The Nobel Peace Centre and the UN.

In his poetry, Eric describes his journey to Britain from Cameroon and through the immigration system as a process of “brutalisation and humiliation”.

Now a Creative Wales Fellow, he runs creative writing workshops with refugees in Cardiff, exploring the idea of overcoming trauma through storytelling.

Nicky said: “Stories like Ngalle’s need telling, and comics are a great way of accessibly communicating them, making the classroom environment more inclusive.

“One of my favourite things about this project is that it presents poetry in a completely different way, whilst also highlighting an important humanitarian issue.”

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