Recently a presentation of graphic novel ‘The Crossroad: 9 Stories About the War and Violence’ took place at Start, former movie theatre in Toretsk. The publication is the first graphic novel in Ukraine, which tells about tough life stories of people in Crimea and Donbas living along both sides of the demarcation line.

During the event, presentation participants, Volodymyr Shcherbachenko – the Head of Board at Eastern-Ukrainian Centre for Civic Initiatives and Hanna Yanova – analyst at Eastern-Ukrainian Centre for Civic Initiatives, presented their work on the graphic novel. The project took one year to prepare and 15 activists from Germany, Switzerland, Belarus and Ukraine and 2 artists took part in the production of this book.

“The visitors of the presentation highly praised the book and took extra copies to share with their neighbours. The visitors were impressed by the approach used for presenting information: unlike common books or films, human grief was depicted through comic book, which has a greater impact on readers. There were many questions during the presentation, and it shows a good response from the public. One of the families affected by the war got inspired and started working on their grant proposal,” – shared her thoughts Olga Rudenko, Head of Ecology and Social Protection CO.

“Tell About the Conflict: making graphic novels about the war in Donbas” is a project implemented by Eastern-Ukrainian Centre for Civil Initiatives within the framework of the Coalition “Justice for Peace in Donbas” and with support of Libereco - Partnership for Human Rights (www.lphr.org) - German human rights organisation and Federal Foreign Office of Germany.