My Hero is You: one year on, planning for a sequel gets underway

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 1700 children from 104 countries helped create a children’s storybook on COVID-19 that went on to reach many thousands of children around the world and to become a global success story. “My Hero is You, how kids can fight COVID-19”, was produced to help children of 6-11 years learn how to protect themselves, their families and friends from the new coronavirus, and how to manage difficult emotions related to the pandemic. A year after its launch, the storybook is available in more than 140 languages and has been adapted in multiple ways. Creative adaptations include animations, puppet theatres, audio files and colouring books, as well as braille transcripts and sign language interpretations.

Today, many children are still living with changes to their daily routines as a result of the pandemic, and having to cope with issues that impact their mental well-being. Many of the issues of concern are not the same as a year ago.

For this reason, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Reference Group on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings, co-chaired by the World Health Organization and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, is embarking on a sequel.

To ensure that the new story addresses the concerns of children during the current phase of the pandemic, we are seeking feedback from children, their parents and other caregivers and teachers through a short online questionnaire.

Launch of the new story is planned for the third quarter of 2021.

Note to questionnaire respondents

We estimate that the multiple-choice questionnaire that you can find at the links below will take 5-10 minutes to complete. All responses will remain anonymous. Data collected will only be used for the purposes of development of the sequel to My Hero is You and will not be provided to third parties.

We hope you will encourage your networks to complete the questionnaire so that we can ensure that the new story is as relevant to and will be enjoyed by as many children as possible.

Arabic

Survey for parents and children

Survey for teachers

Chinese

Survey for parents and children

Survey for teachers

English

Survey for parents and children

Survey for teachers

French

Survey for parents and children

Survey for teachers

Hindi

Survey for parents and children

Survey for teachers

Italian

Survey for parents and children

Survey for teachers

Portuguese

Survey for parents and children

Survey for teachers

Russian

Survey for parents and children

Survey for teachers

Spanish

Survey for parents and children

Survey for teachers

Public Release. More on this here.