All over Europe and beyond, our RJ community is celebrating the RJ WEEK 2016. The EFRJ prepared a short slideshow to present some of the events and stories collected for this annual occasion: feel free to download the PowerPoint presentation and show it in your event! Follow the #RJWeek 2016 on social media.
On 23 November, the EFRJ hosted a comic workshop in the Brussels campus of KU Leuven (Odisee). The workshop was lead by the artist, trainer and youth worker Wauter Mannaert, who has experience in working with vulnerable groups (e.g. refugees, children and adolescents) using artistic tools such as drawing comics and digital storytelling. 
But… what is the link between comics and RJ? Clearly, the aim of this workshop was not (necessarily) to use drawing in RJ practices. Instead, we aimed at taking into consideration different non-verbal ways for personal storytelling and communication (as we did also at the master-class on theatre in prison and we will do at the workshop on digital storytelling and restorative practices).
The workshop became a safe space for storytelling and sharing where we learned some techniques to encourage storytelling and also some basic techniques for drawing comic strips.
Lastly, a final aim was to actively engage participants in the raising awareness activities planned for the RJ WEEK 2016, for example by using the results of the comic workshop for disseminating information about victimisation and offending experiences.
Although we aimed at sharing and drawing two personal stories during this workshop, we managed to finalise only one comic strip based on a victimisation experience. One day was definitely not sufficient to work on two different stories, but enough to open our minds into different strategies for storytelling and the link with restorative justice approaches.
Find below the drawings resulting from our shared stories on victimisation experiences, either at home in our daily routines or while travelling abroad alone, with friends or with families:
Tomorrow, last day of the RJ WEEK for the EFRJ: we will celebrate it with the digital storytelling and restorative practices workshop in Leuven!
