A group of students from Regina’s Lakeview school revealed their self-produced graphic novel, “My Saving Grace: a story of Syrian refugees coming to Canada” on Monday.
The special project was a collaboration between a grade 2/3 class and grade 6/7 and took about four months to complete.
Students undertook different roles to make the comic a reality.
Grade 6 student, Duncan MacDonald, was responsible for writing some of the narrative. Set in the year 2045, ‘My Saving Grace’ follows a Canadian boy tracing his family’s history for a school project.
“He knows they’re from Syria, so he asks his mom about, you know, what was the story of them coming to Canada” he said.
“There’s a lot of twists and turns. It’s a really good story.”
In order to tell the story properly, the students needed to research the war in Syria, refugee camps and aspects of Syrian culture.
Grade 6 student, Emily Henderson, explored the process of getting refugees from camps to homes in Canada. As she found out, it’s not a simple task.
“It can take an awful long time to get to Canada or somewhere safe,” she said.
“You can be stuck in a refugee camp for years.”
The comic book was created with help from local artist, Allan Dotson. Dotson said all students were eager to participate in the project and believed the comic book format helped the children relate to the Syrians’ plight.
“To tell a story, you have to be thinking about specific characters,” he explained.
“So it’s not just ‘Syrians’. It’s this family, and this girl that we’re going to give a name to.”
The project used an Arts Smart grant through the Sask Arts Board.