Sathviga ‘Sona’ Sridhar – a 21-year-old artist from Chennai, India, and winner of the inaugural UNICEF Climate Comic Contest – launched her first ever full-length comic book in celebration of Earth Day 2018. The book features her winning character ‘TRé’, a half tree-half human who uses special powers to save nature from destruction.
Publication of the comic book is the final stage of a contest created by UNICEF and its partner Comics Uniting Nations to inspire and engage children and youth to take climate action through the creative medium of comic design.
Nearly 2,900 submissions were entered by young people from 99 different countries and more than 21,000 votes from 162 countries were cast to determine the winner. Sona’s climate superhero TRé was declared the winner after receiving the highest number of votes from members of the public on the contest website.
After winning the contest, Sona went on to collaborate with UNICEF, Comics Uniting Nations and DeCheser Media to produce the full comic book.
Sona was inspired to take action on climate change after her community was hit by devastating floods in 2015. Together with her family, she provided food and water to people living in severely affected neighborhoods. Readers can read the comic book, available in English, Spanish, French and Hindi: www.comicsunitingnations.org/tre
