Save the Children Sweden presents the comic strip “Los Niños Primero”
 | Legend: Diego Paliza and Alejandro Cussiánovich in the book release.
Credit: Save the Children
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Chutín is a restless and curious boy. Along with his friends Julio, Bruna and Barbara, he will experience an entertaining odyssey, traveling through many neighborhoods of Lima and learning, with his textbook, about GDP, nutrition, health, education and State policies and how all this affects the well-being of the boys and girls of his country.
This is in outline the plot of “Los Niños Primero” (“Children First”), the most recent work of comic strip writer Juan Acevedo, published by Save the Children Sweden, and presented on Thursday, November 10th, at Meliá Hotel, Lima.
On that occasion, Chutín’s adventures were commented by his creator, as well as by Per Tamm, representative of Save the Children Sweden, Diego Paliza, representative of the Second Conference of Children and Adolescents, and Alejandro Cussiánovich, on behalf of the Instituto de Formación para Educadores de Jóvenes, Adolescentes y Niños Trabajadores – IFEJANT (Institute for the Training of Educators of Working Youth, Children and Adolescents).
Why a comic strip book?
“Many of you must be wondering why Save the Children Sweden would assign funds to publish a comic strip book”, said Per Tamm. "The objective is to present the notion of public budget to boys, girls and adolescents in a friendly way”, he added.
“Los Niños Primero” is actually a version specially created for the comic strip based on the study conducted by Enrique Vásquez and the research team of the Universidad del Pacífico (the Pacific University), titled “¿Los niños...primero?” (“Children...first?”). This study includes data and figures of the investment done by the Peruvian State on education, health, food and child nutrition between 2001 and 2003.
“Juan Acevedo has successfully created an attractive story that has the necessary information and explanations to understand the problem of resource distribution for young people”, Per Tamm pointed out.
The Reality of Children
According to Diego Paliza, the relevance of this publication is that “besides presenting a delicate problem in a simple way, it offers data and figures that we must all absolutely know about”.
“We must know that children die of diseases that can be prevented, that many suffer the consequences of nutritional dwarfism, that in Peru, you will find one pediatrician for every 2000 children, or that while our GDP has increased, public expense for child health has diminished”, said Diego Paliza, and added that “the State frequently closes its eyes to the reality children live in our country”.
Alejandro Cussiánovich, on the other hand, pointed out that the comic strip created by Juan Acevedo makes us think about the subject it deals with. “One ends up asking oneself how you are participating and how you can contribute to the story you have just read, besides remembering that things are solved in the present, and especially, that children cannot wait; just as the book points out, they must be the priority”.
About the author
Juan Acevedo commented that “to create the characters and the story”, he had to study closely “the work of several leaders and directors of many social aid programmes”.
“One of the things I consider important from the book is the interaction of children with their environment, the city, their neighbors, their friends and teachers; each character and each element of reality has a story to tell and this is closely linked to the subject of State budget and its distribution, because this must be a daily issued”, he stated.
Acevedo is considered the best Peruvian comic strip writer and has a deserved international prestige. He is the creator of characters such as El Cuy and La Araña No, and his work includes titles such as “La historia de Iberoamérica desde los niños” (“The history of Latin America told by children”, “Pobre Diablo y otros cuentos” (Poor Devil and other stories”), among others.
Source: Save the Children
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