We’re delighted to share that VIBE Youth CIC has been awarded funding through Comic Relief Cwtch Communities, administered by WCVA, to deliver LIL VIBES: Astro-Adventure. We’ve been sitting on this news for a little while, and it feels good to finally say it out loud, thanks to Comic Relief and WCVA, a programme we’ve been building for a long time is about to meet the children it was made for.
And the countdown is officially on. LIL VIBES: Astro-Adventure launches on Tuesday 22 September at 10am.
What LIL VIBES is
LIL VIBES is an emotional literacy project for 5 to 7-year-olds, built around an original comic book we’re creating specially for it.
Most emotional wellbeing work asks children to talk about themselves. That’s a big ask for a six-year-old. It’s much easier for a child to point at a page and say “I’m on Planet Fizz today” than to find the words for feeling overwhelmed. The comic gives them a way in through story rather than self-disclosure, and once they’ve got that language, it stays with them and carries on being used in the classroom long after we’ve packed up and gone home.
Meet The Crew
The story starts in a backyard in Swansea, where four friends have built themselves a rocket.
Kai, Sam, Roxy and Biggar are the VIBE Squad. Their ship is the VIBE-X, cobbled together out of wood, paint and pure determination. When they blast off, they don’t head for the stars in general, they head for a very particular set of planets, and every single one of them is a feeling.
Planet Fizz is where the big, fizzy, hard-to-hold energy lives. All that buzzing, bouncing, can’t-sit-still feeling that adults so often just call “behaviour”.
Planet Low-Batt is the opposite. Everything goes heavy and slow there, the colours drain out and getting off the sofa feels like climbing a mountain.
Children recognise both of these places immediately, because they’ve already been to them. They just didn’t have a name for them.
The journey: Twelve Sessions
The programme follows the comic across twelve sessions, and every stop on the map does a job.
Getting ready to fly
- The Backyard Blueprint: emotional vocabulary and high-energy triggers
- Tuning the VIBE-X Rocket: the “I feel” framework, and spotting low-battery states
- Leaving Orbit: committing to the journey and turning feelings into action
Planet Fizz: big energy
- The Butterfly Disco: body mapping and the physical signs of high energy
- The Shaky Volcano: safe physical release and regulating energy
Planet Low-Batt: low energy
- The Heavy Cave: recognising low mood and withdrawal
- Sitting with the Cloud: co-regulation, empathy and grounding
Sector Scrap: overwhelm
- System Overload: sensory overload and brain clutter
- The Calm Box Project: each child builds their own emotional toolkit
Mount Mistake, Whispering Woods and home
- The Help Flare: resilience, and learning that it’s alright to ask for help
- The Knotted Vines: conflict resolution and seeing it from someone else’s side
- The Friendship Web and Graduation: celebrating growth, peer connection and a proper send-off
By the time the VIBE-X comes back down into that Swansea backyard, the children have a vocabulary for what happens inside them, a set of things they can actually do about it, and a calm box they built with their own hands.
Why this funding matters
Comic Relief Cwtch Communities backs grassroots organisations in Wales doing work that meets people where they are. Early childhood development is one of the fund’s priorities, and “cwtch” is exactly the right word for what we’re trying to build. A warm, safe place, somewhere a child can bring whatever they’re carrying and not be judged for it.
That’s what we want every LIL VIBES session to feel like.
This award means we can put the comic in children’s hands, train the people who’ll deliver it, and get the project into settings across our patch. For a small team, that’s the difference between a good idea and a real thing happening in a real room with real children in it.
Our thanks to Comic Relief for the funding and to WCVA for administering the scheme and for the support through the process.
Two weeks to go
Launch day is Tuesday 22 September, 10am. We’ll be sharing the first look at the comic, meeting the crew properly, and opening the door to schools and settings who want to come on board.
If you work with 5 to 7-year-olds and you want your children to have the words for what they’re feeling, get in touch. There’s room on the rocket.
T-minus 14 days. See you on the launchpad.
