Grade 5 pupil’s Covid comic strip wins top African prize
FOR HIS innovative robot graphics, 11-year-old Paarl pupil Jan Louwrens’s comic strip created in collaboration with digital agricultural news website Food For Mzansi, has won the Best Special Project for Covid-19 category at the recent African Digital Media Awards.
The award now sees young Jan and his team going through to the World Digital Media Awards finals, where their project will compete against winners from other continents.
The project that the Grade 5 pupil at Curro Online – Curro Holdings’ first fully online school – worked on is called Thandi and Captain Stay Safe, which included a podcast, regular news updates and a cartoon series called
Battle of Covid-19.
Jan was responsible for the cartoon artwork.
His comic series, Battle of Covid19, features the heroic robot Captain Stay Safe, helping children face their fears around returning to school after lockdown.
The comic provides valuable tips for children on how to protect themselves against the virus while at school.
Battle of Covid-19 has been translated into all 11 official languages and was even featured on a German television show for youth.
When Food For Mzansi approached Jan to work on their coronavirus campaign, he was already busy creating comic strips for his robots, making it an easy project to start collaborating on.
Jan has been drawing robots since he could put pencil to paper. His robots – and their unique backstories – have even led to the creation of his own growing online business, Baggo Stonetrip, which sells T-shirts and hoodies to kids and adults featuring prints of his robotic creations.
“When they announced the winners, I first thought that it was somebody else who won, but then I heard the cheering and realised it was us,” Jan said, adding that the creation of the Captain Stay Safe robot was a bit tricky.
“I had to come up with a unique robot character that suits a Covid-19 theme. But once I had the idea pinned
When they announced the winners, I first thought that it was somebody else who won Jan Louwrens winner
down, the rest was easy,” he said.
This is not the first time Jan and his robot designs assisted in the fight against the virus. One of his other recent creations made it to the label of ViroGOLDSchool, a hand sanitiser range used in schools around the country.
The ViroGOLD-Bot is a hypochlorous acid (HOCI) processing and dispensing machine, with HOCI used to disinfect surfaces and protect against Covid-19.
Curro Online Business Manager Jay Paul said Jan and his robotic creations showed how creativity and passion could lead to amazing things.
“We believe that his team’s success at the African Digital Media Awards will be an inspiration to all our learners, and we wish them the best of luck for the upcoming World Digital Media Awards,” Paul said.