Comics for Youth Refugees Incorporated Collective (CYRIC)

It’s so lovely to have the website back online and running at, well, 95% capacity. (We still need to reload all of our Contributors content, but we have so much new art, so stay tuned there.)

In the meantime, here’s some tremendous coverage and awards we’ve received from the kind people at IVOH, the Pollination Project, Muftah, and Kleefeld on Comics.

Writer turns folklore into comics for Syria’s refugee youth

Comics for Youth Refugees Incorporated Collective (CYRIC) – Haawiyat comic

The Comic, “Haawiyat,” Brings the Stories of Syria to Refugee Children

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CYRIC President A. David Lewis had the opportunity this Summer to talk with Robin Young, host of WBUR’s “Here and Now” program, about Islam in comics generally and the specific mission of our non-profit organization.

Click here for the full write-up or click below to listen in!

CYRIC President A. David Lewis was invited to sit down and discuss Haawiyat with Rachel Moulden of The Pit Media about the history of the project, its progress, and its expanding goals.

Over at Forbes.com, Rob Salkowitz, (author of Comic-Con and the Business of Pop Culture) kindly put his focus on Haawiyat with the article “Comics Project Aims To Offer Hope To Syrian Refugee Kids.”

The stories in the comic were created in conjunction with mental health professionals and onsite experts, according to CYRIC. “Haawiyat consists of timeless Syrian folklore adapted into comics form and cultivated for its potential healing content,” said Project Leader A. David Lewis. “These tales, in standard Arabic for readers ages 6-12 or with supervision, are intended to deliver some measure of solace or narrative stability in their current situations.”

Follow Rob on Twitter @robsalk.

Monica Rodriguez of the World Policy Institute dedicated her 6 April 2017 posting to the World Institute Blog to our efforts with Haawiyat. In addition, the piece featured some never-before-seen-online art from the book from our excellent Contributors. Follow the link and have a look!

Our partners at NuDay Syria have generously provided us with images of the kids receiving and reading their copies of Haawiyat. Says one of our contacts there, “The kids were super excited to read over the stories, and in some cases distracted me from photographing since they were eager to read to me!”

See our Field Feedback page for images of
these children in Istanbul and Gaziantep!

Get additional comics to children like these by supporting us via Razoo.

At their Sunday, April 9th container sorting and packing event, NuDay Syria was given nearly 400 copies of the all-volunteer inaugural edition of Haawiyat to take overseas. A. David Lewis and Nadia Alawa were on site for the hand-off of the materials.

Now, as work begins on a longer, revised edition, these initial books — printed for free by Ka-Blam Digital Publishing — will make their way to children at refugee camps in Turkey and along the Syrian border. Watch for updates here!

As of March 1, 2017, the group behind Haawiyat has been officially recognized as a non-profit organization.

Comics for Youth Refugees Incorporated Collective
Employer Identification Number (EIN): 81-5449870

Based on this marvelous news, we are now able to take donations and seek funding for further projects. (Any donations received now will be retroactively made tax-deductible upon our 501(c)(3) approval in the next 90 days.)

More big news to come!

The word about Haawiyat is getting out! We’ve been covered by Graphic Policy, Bleeding Cool, Pop Culture HQ, and several other sites — some international.

For the latest news on Haawiyat‘s development, follow us on Twitter as @syriacomic.