Liverpool-based ADHD Foundation – The Neurodiversity Charity has launched The Umbrella Gang, part of a six part series of vibrant, engaging and free educational comics which aim to empower children with learning differences to believe in themselves and realise their true potential.

The Umbrella Gang is based on the Foundation’s real-life group of inspirational young ambassadors, and also features some celebrity cameos including Stephen Fry, Rory Bremner, Patricia Kelly (wife of legendary Hollywood star Gene Kelly), singer/songwriter and TV sports presenter Chelcee Grimes, and rapper Loyle Carner, as animated fictional characters.

The comic, now in its second edition, is also inspired by the charity’s successful Umbrella Project, an art installation which has seen brightly-coloured umbrellas suspended in Liverpool city centre, BBC North at MediaCityUK in Salford, Heathrow’s Terminal 5 and schools across the UK.

Available for free to school children across the country from six to 12-year-olds, The Umbrella Gang 2 follows our characters as they move into secondary school, where in this particular case, neurodiversity isn’t so well understood. We see how the gang navigate these challenges and how they educate the rest of the school about neurodiversity.

Dr Tony Lloyd, CEO ADHD Foundation, said:

This is an educational, illustrated comic by young people for young people who are asking the world to see what they can do – not just those things they can’t do so well. It is about these individuals realising their true potential.

Based on our incredible young ambassadors, each with a different and equally inspirational story to tell, we hope that the comic sends out a powerful message to young people that being neurodiverse is not just ‘ok’ but also a ‘superpower’ – essentially reframing the conversation to inspire young people to thrive and achieve.

The comic is a fun concept, but also a vehicle for a much bigger conversation that has captured the zeitgeist of Government and commerce right now in how different minds are great for business and now so prevalent in industries like technology, bioscience, professional sport and media etc.

This graphically illustrated comic is produced in partnership with Glasgow-based company, Dekko Comics, with support from People’s Postcode Lottery and the BFI.

To download the full comic, click here.

Image credit: ADHD Foundation