Context
As part of the European Breaking Taboos about mental health project, Les Apprimeurs is running a series of workshops called Des bulles dans ta tête (Bubbles in your head). The aim of these workshops is to deconstruct stereotypes and prejudices relating to mental health, by becoming co-designer of an interactive digital comic strip.
On 24 and 27 April, Les Apprimeurs ran two sessions of workshops alongside Solène Rousseau, a PSSM (Mental Health First Aid) trainer at La Source in Saint Nazaire. Six young people aged 16 to 25 took part in the workshops, learning more about mental health issues and creating their own comic strip based on a mental health stereotype.
On the second day of the workshop, during which the young people were able to design their comic strip, a member of the Les Pieds dans le Paf association came to interview Julie Guilleminot, president of Les Apprimeurs, and Zoé, who had taken part in the workshop, to find out more about how it was run and its objective. This interview was later broadcast at Cinéville in Saint Nazaire as part of a round table discussion on the theme of ‘Youth and Health’ organised by the town of Saint Nazaire.
Speakers
Zoé – participant in the Bubbles in your head workshop
Julie Guilleminot – President of the Les Apprimeurs agency and coordinator of the Breaking Taboos project
Transcription
(Zoé) To start with, we had a chat, gave our opinions and at the same time introduced ourselves, to get to know each other a little better. Then we created a story board, so we actually invented a story and turned it into a comic strip.
And it’s true that mental health is a very complex issue because it’s already going to depends on the individual. Each person is in a different situation and will have a different way of reacting. And that’s why we also worked on what we thought about the clichés that people might have. Just because you’re young doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t have problems, you can have problems when you’re young.
Mental health, even if as I said it depends on the situation and the person, takes time for the person to heal and above all they need help too. It’s not just a question of willpower. So after that there’s the psychologist and everything, so we discussed the help we can give, but also the help we can give by guiding the person with a problem to someone who can help them, for example… just a psychologist who can help.
So, with my group, I chose the theme of depression, which is something that happens to many, many people. And depression is something that can happen very frequently in our lives because we tend not to want to talk about it, about a subject we don’t dare. We did talk about it, but there wasn’t really any particular research involved in producing the comic.
We did it our way, what we thought of it, what we wanted to convey too. In comics, there isn’t really an exact ending. We tried to be as open as possible… so that when people read the comic, they could ask themselves questions afterwards, leaving questions, thinking and debating too. So it could be interesting, it allows for discussion.
(Julie Guilleminot) Les Apprimeurs is a digital agency and a publishing house for young people. And we are currently coordinating a European project called Breaking Taboos about mental health, which aims to deconstruct prejudices about mental health through educational resources and digital comic strip creation workshops. So we did an initial test session in partnership with La Source. The aim was to see if people liked the tool and to validate the principle. We hope to have everything ready by the end of the year, and then to be able to roll out the workshop in schools, public facilities and so on.
You can find all the comics produced during the workshop on the Breaking Taboos project website or on the Des bulles dans ta tête website.
