Behind the door of a small, red-brick public housing apartment in Denver’s Westwood neighborhood, more than two dozen children are spending the summer creating colorful comic strips in a reading and technology program.
“Box Man” is a comic-strip hero who popped into the mind of 10-year-old Faduma Mohamed. Like a chameleon, Box Man can rapidly switch color from orange to red then blue on her computer screen.
“Boom! He disappears like magic,” Faduma said.
The once-shy girl who struggled in school has become confident and outgoing and her grades improved after she began participating last year in programs sponsored by the Bridge Project, a nonprofit organization that provides educational services to children who live in public housing.
“It’s made a difference in her schoolwork, grades and social skills,” said her father, Mohamed Mohamed.
Since the beginning of summer, Faduma has gone to class sessions five days a week, learning to use comic-strip software to bring Box Man to life.
The Bridge Project started in 1991 after community leaders joined forces with faculty at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Social Work who wanted to reduce educational barriers and increase educational opportunities for children who live in public housing.
“Our goal is to encourage kids and see them graduate from high school and beyond,” said Bridge Project director Mary Krane.
Today, career and educational services are provided in three low-income neighborhoods including Westwood, where 31 percent of children live in poverty, according to U.S. census figures.
On Thursday, 20 children worked on computers to fine-tune their illustrations. They also took part in a “bully proof” session and acted out scenarios on how to handle being bullied.
Many of the children at the Westwood site have reading deficiencies, educational specialist Lynn Pham said.
“These children are (in) the lowest percentile of the lowest percentile,” she said. “We’d like to see them increase a half-grade level per year.”
Last summer, the children created movies. This year they are designing six- to 10-frame comic strips by writing a script and dialogue, drawing the characters and scanning them into computers using comic-strip software.
The comic strips will be completed before July 30, the last day of the project.
The colorful illustrations will be filmed together so the young artists can view them as a movie. They may go on display in local coffee shops and restaurants.
Long San, 18, was reared and educated in Westwood. This fall, he will study chemistry at the University of Colorado at Denver. He is volunteering his time at the Bridge Project.
Thursday he showed the children how to download their digital pictures.
“It feels good to give back to my community,” San said.
Staff writer Annette Espinoza can be reached at 303-820-1655 or aespinoza@denverpost.com.
