Makassar student wins Unicef anti-bullying comic contest

JAKARTA: Seventeen-year-old student Rizka Raisah Fatimah Ramli from Makassar, South Sulawesi, has won the Unicef and Comics Uniting Nations’ worldwide comic contest. Her creation Cipta is designed to help keep children and young people safe from violence in and around schools.

Main character Cipta is a make-believe superhero who gives children a sketchbook to draw objects that in turn come to life and stop violence and bullying.

The comic contest was launched in October 2018, calling on children and young people to create a comic superhero that would defeat The Silence, a supernatural character that uses its powers to stop children from speaking up and taking action against violence in and around schools.

Unicef said that nearly 3,600 submissions were entered from more than 130 countries, and more than 23,000 votes were cast on the contest website to determine the winner.

In a text interview with The Jakarta Post on Thursday, Rizka said that she started to draw in elementary school, as her older brother and sisters found joy in reading comic books and playing video games such as Slam Dunk and Lost Saga.

Relating to the contest’s theme, she said she had the unfortunate experience of being verbally bullied in the first year of high school.

“At the time, I had no idea what to do as it also happened to my friends and I thought that it was a normal thing to happen,” she said.

In a statement released by Unicef, Rizka said she created Cipta to draw attention to the violence and bullying that children in Indonesia and around the world face every day.

As the winner, Rizka will have the opportunity to collaborate with a professional team to produce a full-length comic book featuring Cipta.

Her comic book will be presented to world leaders at the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development at the UN in July 2019, as well as distributed to schools and children worldwide.