KOKONAINEN MINÄ - A PARticipatory childrens book for under school aged children
Kokonainen minä (Whole me) is a participatory, illustrated children's book, created with intercultural young people, which tells the adventurous story of three intercultural, multilingual children The book highlights the experiences and everyday lives multilingual children and gives them the opportunity to express their own languages and cultures whilst reading the book, both in daycare settings and at home.
The book is written by children's author Wende Luvinga. The illustrations are a collaboration between Noora Ketolainen and Maryam Abuzaid - Ryu. The concept and story of the book was co-created with a team of intercultural young people and our artistic team using child-centred, participatory methods. A team of experts from early childhood education, representation, equality and the everyday lives of intercultural families was also involved. The book was produced with the support of the Arts Promotion Centre Finland. order a copy to your daycareWe are distributing the book free of charge to daycares, if you would like a copy of the book for your kindergarten, please send an email request.: [email protected] |
Meetour multilingual CHILDREN
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make in collaboration
Creating this book has been a great pleasure and a real co-creation experience. It has involved young readers, young people from two cultures and experts in children's literature, representation and early childhood education. Our artistic team Wende, Maryam and Noora have worked together to further develop the characters and story of the book through an ongoing discussion on representation.
We started with three co-development workshops with eight young people from two cultures in autumn 2023. The characters in the book are based on the young people's character sketches, which we further developed together. The young people have provided ideas for both the story plot and the illustrations. The young people also drew their own potrettes, which can be found on the next page. We presented the first and second drafts of the book to our expert group. We received feedback and ideas from the children of the half-flower group of the Espoo Kivimiehen Kindergarten and from the bicultural children who participated in the Family Belingual Family Day. |
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meet the artistic team
Wende luvinga |
NOORA KETOLAINEN |
Maryam Abuzaid-Ryu |
I am a multilingual children's author and mother of two. I am originally from Tanzania and now live in Helsinki. At home we speak English, Swahili and Finnish. I also speak a little Portuguese at work. I didn't have any books as a child, but my grandmother told me many stories. So as an adult I decided to put some of my grandmother's stories in a book. I think my superpower is to create stories that bring joy to children. Creating this story together with young people has been fun and inspiring. I have learned a lot from them.
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I am a 32-year-old creative artist living in an intercultural family with my Mexican husband. At home we speak Finnish, English and Spanish. I like to paint, read, bake and of course have adventures! My dream superpower would be to be able to bring new things into the world by drawing, just like Viima. I would draw more joy, colours and equality in the world. Maryam and I illustrated this book. We came up with lots of fun details for the pages of the book and it was fun to work together!
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I am a 30-year-old Palestinian-Korean artist from Tampere, Finland. At home, my Sudanese husband and I celebrate many cultures and languages. I speak Finnish, English and Korean and some Arabic, German and Swedish. I hope to become fluent in Arabic and I am working on it! I like swimming, singing, reading and writing. If I had a superpower, I would be able to snap my fingers and make delicious meals and treats! I illustrated this book together with Noora. It was fun and educational to draw with her.
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