We are Rocky Books! We advocate for children's mental health by centering children's stories and experiences in traumatic events. We make trauma-informed storybooks for children and families to teach them coping skills, Learn more about our story and process below.
Our microbooks have had positive feedback across the board, from mental health professionals, support workers, parents, and children. Contribute to our fund and join our movement in #CenteringTheChildren experiencing trauma.
WEBSITE FUNDRAISER
Sponsor our website so we can host our resources!
We need a website so families and mental health professionals can find and access our FREE microbooks easily. All of our resources and advice are free.
Our storybooks support families and children through difficult situations. We guide parents on how to bring up and navigate difficult topics with their children. Our stories centre children's experiences of trauma, never minimising or dismissing them.
We have books on the topics of domestic violence, family problems, gaslighting, as well as 2 Trauma Support Booklets we've designed specially for the children affected by the earthquakes in Syria and Turkey.
Our resources are in several languages including: English, Hindi, Urdu, French, Spanish, Slovenian, Tamil, Telugu, Cantonese, Mandarin, Arabic, Turkish.
We’d love to have a new website to launch our fifth Rocky Book - “Ginny Tackles Gaslighting” - a microbook about a young Black British girl who learns how to recognise and deal with being gaslighted at home by her mum. (Illustrated by Nirupama Vishwanath.)
We’d love to launch Ginny Tackles Gaslighting on our brand new website!
Rocky Books are micro storybooks that teach healthy coping exercises to children experiencing anxiety, fear and other emotions resulting from trauma.
Rocky Books has 3 elements:
- We illustrate a traumatic scenario, using trauma-informed writing and trauma-informed illustration
- Follow up with appropriate coping mechanisms or exercises prescribed by a qualified psychologist and family therapist.
- Children can learn the exercises and use them in similar future situations.
By the end of 2022, we raised enough money to create 5 micro-books on the theme of domestic abuse during the pandemic. Our micro books received a fantastic reception, both from the general public, as well as people and organisations working in children’s mental health spaces. Check out our blog here: https://rockybooks.medium.com/rocky-books-year-in-review-2022-quality-over-quantity-c083ada2f86a
We’ve since published 4 micro-books on our Instagram platform, completely free to access, as well as translated them into 10+ languages. You can check them out here: instagram.com/rockybooksco
We really wanted to use Instagram as a platform for our books, but we soon realised it’s too confusing for our users to navigate.
So we need a website to properly host our resources. We haven’t been able to build a website due to lack of funds, but we’re hoping to change that with your support!
Here’s where the money will go
Website + Branding
Yes, we don’t even have a proper logo yet!
Thankfully, Arpita, our wonderful illustrator also specialises in branding and website building.
Cost for branding: INR 30,000. This includes logo design, business cards, colour schemes, etc. We don't have any of this yet.
Cost for website building: INR 35,000.
Cost for website hosting: INR 5,000-10,000 for 1 or 2 years.
Typsetting
We have our first 4 books translated into several languages including French, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Hindi, Kannada, Spanish, Mandarin, and more. We would love to have these languages typesetted onto our illustrated spreads.
Each book costs about INR 2,500-3,000 to typeset by a graphic illustrator.
Corpus Fund
We also require a corpus fund for everyday, organisational expenses. This includes things that organisations need money for: our website domain, Dropbox, Google Work space, our website maintenance, internet access, Zoom, transport for Rocky Books related events, workshops, or conferences, etc.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: How will kids get access to your micro-books?
A: Many ways!
Directly read or download them from our website
In PDF or print form at schools, libraries, charities, from therapists, social workers, and organisations that support children and families.
This way, organisations, teachers, parents, social workers, community leaders, babysitters will be able to share Rocky Books with the children in their lives.
Q: How are little kids going to read and understand the stories?
A: We want parents, teachers, and older siblings to sit with the children in their lives and read Rocky Books together - like they would with any story book! We also believe that the tools in Rocky Books can be used by adults too. You’re never too old to learn how to heal.
Q: Are Rocky Books just for kids?
A: We want to create micro-books that deal with issues faced by children as small as 3 years to teens and young adults.
Q: Are Rocky Books only available in English?
A: We have books translated into 10 languages!
Q: Are Rocky Books only for Indian kids?
A: Nope. We are starting with stories centering Indian families for now because we happen to be Indian. We want to cover as many countries, languages, and cultures as possible.
Q: What about people who don’t have access to the internet?
A: All our micro-books will be available for download and print. This means that NGOs, charities, schools, doctors offices, community centres will be able to download, print, and share Rocky Books!
Q: Why is it called Rocky Books?
A: Rocky is our doggy mascot who wants to teach kids that even though things may be “rocky” at home they’re not alone! “Rocky” is also easy to say in any language :).
Q: Do Rocky Books only tackle domestic violence issues?
A: Nope! Domestic Violence and its effects are what we are focusing on now as that is the need of the hour due to the global pandemic. We want to tackle many issues that children face that are detrimental to their short term and long term mental health. In fact, Nida initially had the idea for Rocky Books as a response to the international refugee crisis! We can use the Rocky Books model for children affected by displacement, war, natural disaster, bullying, trafficking, substance misuse etc.
Q: Is this a resource only for girls?
A: Nope! Rocky Books are for all children regardless of gender. We also do not portray the abusers only as men, as anyone of any gender can be an abuser, including women.
WHO WE ARE
Nida Sheriff, Director of Operations and Stories & Rocky Books Co-Founder
Nida is a writer, producer, consultant & social entrepreneur based in Bangalore, India. Previously Nida was Manager at Chayn India, the regional chapter of CHAYN, and member of CHAYN’s executive team. At CHAYN she managed the launch of chaynindia.com, managed partnerships, volunteers, and various projects like the DIY Online Safety Guide and How To Build Your Own Domestic Violence Case Without A Lawyer Toolkit.
With Chayn India, Nida co-founded SnapCounsellors, an award-winning micro-counselling service pilot on the Snapchat platform. SnapCounsellors was created to offer mental health help to teens on Snapchat, using technology to make mental health counselling more accessible. SnapCounsellors made waves across the globe and was featured in Tech in Asia, Teen Vogue, Bento, Buzzfeed and many more international publications. In 2018, for her work on SnapCounsellors and Chayn India, Nida received a Woman Economic Forum Award for Women of Exceptional Excellence & a Digital Women Award from SheThePeople for Social Impact.
While working in the social tech x domestic violence space, and interacting with survivors of domestic violence and the refugee crisis from around the world, Nida noticed that children were often left out of critical services and tools. Thus, the idea for Rocky Books was born!
Sheena Vassiliades, Director of Psychology/Advisor & Rocky Books Co-Founder
Sheena is our Psychology Advisor based in London, UK. Sheena has experience as a Functional Family Therapist, Cognitive Behavioural Therapist, Substance Misuse Specialist, Youth and Gangs Worker, and Sexual Health Advisor.
She is extremely passionate about working with individuals/families that have come to face various difficulties whilst trying to live, including (but not limited to) drug abuse, domestic violence, mental health challenges, gang affiliation, violent sexual behaviour, death.
Whilst completing her masters in Forensic Psychology, she worked in a high category adult male prison (HMP Pentonville, London UK) delivering 1-1 drug counselling and group therapy. She moved on to work with youth carrying out early intervention and prevention therapy (drug & crime related). Her interest piqued and her skills constantly developing, she began delivering family therapy to whole families as a unit, rather than focusing on adults/youth individually. Having worked with adults, youth and now families with adults, youth and children all in one has opened her eyes to the importance of upbringing and how it affects every person on their journey of survival.
Recently having a child of her own has further helped Sheena understand how malleable the human mind can be and how very important it is for us to receive support from our earliest days. The lack of which can be detrimental to our basic need to survive. To sum it all up, this is what Sheena does – gently guide her fellow beings over multiple hurdles on our paths of survival. And she loves what she does!
Arpita Sawant, Illustrator, Branding & Website Designer
Arpita is an independent visual artist, designer and dreamer based out of Mumbai, India. Her design practice involves documenting all that is imaginative, heartfelt, human. As a visual story-teller; the only thing she likes more than reading about eccentric characters and experiences, is drawing them.
ROBERT THOMPSON, Colourist/Illustrator
An Illustrator/Designer by profession, whose philosophy is to create pathways of experience, connecting issues of agency, belonging and identity through the lens of mental health.
His tools used for imagineering these thought-provoking sketches are pencils, markers, digital renderings, his favorite being ink, on an eclectic range of mediums.
Nirupama Vishwanath, Illustrator
Nirupama Viswanath is an Illustrator and Architect from Chennai, India.
An architect by profession, Nirupama found her calling in digital illustration during one of her architectural drawing sessions, back in 2014. She began to explore various styles of the art form and was eventually drawn to the world of children’s books.
She currently works out of her home studio in Delhi and loves creating art that's rooted in inclusion, diversity, respect, emotions, and of course, love.