More interesting than the superhero-style comic book that anchors the Priya’s Shakti project, at least for me, are a series of audio interviews with assault victims that influenced writers Devineni & Menon in crafting the heroine’s fictionalized story. Illustrated videos of these interviews are included in the “augmented reality” content viewable on a smartphone app, but I found the app a little glitchy, and access to the video content was unreliable. Fortunately, two of these interviews are also available on the project’s website.
The writers also interviewed men at a street market in Delhi and conclude that about half of the men in Delhi believe that when a woman is raped, the fault is 50% hers and 50% the assailant’s.
The outreach: The Priya’s Shakti project website has extensive info on Comic Books for Social Change Workshops in Chennai, Bengaluru, and New York City, including the video below.
The project has also partnered with NGO Apne Aap to get the comic into schools in India. With the goal “to make the image of Priya on the tiger a powerful symbol for fighting gender-based violence,” murals of Priya have been painted in public areas of Mumbai and Bengaluru. When viewed with the augmented reality app, the murals and street art display additional content from the Priya story.
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