Our monthly meeting with the CAB took place yesterday at the Botswana-Baylor Children's Clinical Centre of Excellence. Present at this meeting were NGO stakeholders, researchers, and the Genome Adventures Team. At this meeting, we were able to update the board on our progress with our most current project, Genome Adventures. There was discussion about the graphic design, cartooning, scripting and character bibles. The graphic designs and cartooning depicted the Genome Adventures logo and characters from our comic book series. We received some very helpful feedback, as our community advisory board has much to contribute to the project's development process. One particular suggestion was from an NGO leader about the representation of femininity in superhero form. She brought to our attention the need to be sensitive to gender bias and that a woman need not be "masculine" or "muscular" in order to be a superhero. We humbly received her insight, taking note of how we initially chose to present that particular character.
When discussing the character bibles and script for books 1-4, the board was very pleased. They asked several questions about the relevance of certain scenes and the significance of the information presented. Edward Pettitt, Project Coordinator for CAfGEN and Genome Adventures explained each scene's significance as it related to scientific knowledge. He elaborated on DNA sequencing, CCR5 deletions, Mendel's Law of Inheritance, Watson and Cricks discovery of the double helix and Rosalind's contributions to the discovery.
Overall, the creative process has been progressive and fruitful in many respects. The board was pleased with our work thus far, praising us for our inclusion of cultural norms and values. To us, the Genome Adventures Team, it is very important to reference Botswana culture as an Afrocentric approach is unique and serves the community as a whole. The key phrase is cultural relevancy.
At our next meeting, which will take place in March, we will be providing updates about comic book 1--The History of Heredity.