I’m Artistic Director of Together! 2012 CIC, a Paralympic Legacy organisation that began as a free Disability Arts and Human Rights festival. Since it was founded, we have worked tirelessly to make Newham into an international centre of excellence for Disability Arts as part of the 2012 Legacy.

We started a join in from home programme at the start of lockdown, which we are still running, but as the pandemic took hold it became apparent to us that basic information was missing from official communications. There was very little about how infection spreads, how it’s stopped and very little in languages other than English.

This meant that significant numbers of the audiences we work with had only a limited understanding of what they needed to do to prevent infection — particularly if they lacked broadband. We knew we needed to provide a free resource that would clearly and effectively explain the infection and what people could do to stay safe and that’s where the idea for Charlie and the C Monsters came from.

I have a background in comics, along with experience of health education communications. I teamed up with Hannah Ensor and Stickman Communications Ltd and together we created the comic book, a free-to-download 16-page A4 PDF with no words, making it accessible to people with literacy and impairment barriers and to people who speak English as an additional language.

It’s unique in that it can be read in black and white but also used as a colouring book, which we hope will increase the time that people spend engaging. We’ve also released it under a Creative Commons licence, which means that anyone can reprint and distribute so long as it’s not used commercially or altered.

Given that many people at risk lack internet access, we encourage publishers to consider including it as an insert in publications, and that public authorities will take advantage of our offer to print for mass audiences. It’s important to us that everyone has access to this resource. We’ve also created a short film to accompany the comic. You can watch the film and download the comic from www.charlieandthecmonsters.com.

No news is bad news

Independent news outlets like ours – reporting for the community without rich backers – are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts.

The audiences they serve know less, understand less, and can do less.

If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, yearly or one-off donation.

Choose the news. Don’t lose the news.

Monthly direct debit

Annual direct debit

£5 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else, £10 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else and a print copy posted to them each month. £50 annual supporters get a digital copy of each month's paper before anyone else.