Sesame Workshop Launches New Sesame Street China Website
Sesame Workshop, the non-profit educational organization behind Sesame Street, is committed to the future of children’s educational media in China. That’s why last week we launched the Sesame StreetChina website, a new online resource with activities and videos for children and tips for Chinese parents.
The site is made up of three sections, titled “The Show,” “Grown-ups,” and “Meet Sesame Street.” The first includes segments from Sesame Street’s Big Bird Looks at the World, the Chinese version of Sesame Street, created in partnership with Shanghai Media Group’s Toonmax. “Grown-ups” has professional parenting tips to help Chinese families with their children’s mental, physical and emotional development. And “Meet Sesame Street” has information about Sesame Workshop’s research model, our historical international educational efforts both inside and outside China and the Workshops’ key partners. The website is also highly interconnected with Weibo and Kaixin, two extremely popular Chinese social media networks.
Sesame Workshop first began helping Chinese children fulfill their full potential in 1983 when we collaborated with CCTV to create Big Bird in China. With the launch of the Sesame Street China website, we’re proud to continue that tradition.
Sesame and USAID Work Together to Promote Children’s Health
Promoting the health and wellbeing of children around the world is a critical part of Sesame Workshop’s mission. That’s why we’re excited to support USAID’s Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday child survival campaign. The above video, which pulls together footage from our international co-productions, highlights the importance of vaccination campaigns, hand washing, malaria control and HIV anti-stigma efforts to our educational content across the globe.
To learn more about “Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday” campaign, please click here. To learn more about Sesame Workshop’s work around around the world, please click here.
Sesame Workshop is dedicated to creating fun, educational experiences for children on any platform possible. TV Shows, books, tablet applications: If it can be used to educate children, we’ll explore its potential. But sometimes there’s nothing more fun than creating an entirely new world for children to roam around in. That’s what we’ve done in Japan, where a new “Sesame Street Fun World” has recently been unveiled at Universal Studios Japan in Osaka. Inside the new Elmo Exploratorium you can climb around in Big Bird’s Big Nest (a net-shaped jungle gym), build anything you can imagine at Grover’s Construction Company or have a healthy snack at Cookie Monster’s Kitchen. Check out photos from the new “Sesame Street Fun World” below, and click here to learn more about Sesame Street Japan and all of our international co-productions.
Sim Sim Hamara’s Performance from Pakistan’s International Puppet Day
Two weeks ago Sim Sim Hamara, the Pakistani version of Sesame Street, celebrated International Puppet Day in Lahore. Our partners at Rafi Peer Theater Workshop, whom Senior Vice President of Global Education Charlotte Cole recently wrote about, sent us a video of a puppet show from that day. Everyone’s having such a great time that not showing you didn’t feel right. Stick around til the end when they sing the Sim Sim Hamara theme song. It might be the most relaxing of all the international co-production theme songs.
On the Ground with Rafi Peer, Sesame Workshop’s Partner in Pakistan
Ed. Note: Charlotte Cole is the Senior Vice President of Global Education for Sesame Workshop.
The gates of Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop in Lahore are a portal into a rich celebration of Pakistan’s culture. The compound, which houses a Museum of Puppetry, a crafts exhibit and a restaurant, is also the location of the home office for Sim Sim Hamara, the Pakistani version of Sesame Street. And it was there that I and two colleagues, Sadaf Sajwani, Assistant Director and Lilith Dollard, Educational Content Specialist, spent the past week. We were in Lahore to forward the work on a coproduction partnership that began two years ago when Rafi Peer received a grant from the United States Agency for International Development to create a multi-platform educational initiative known as Pakistan Children’s Television (PCTV). Sim Sim Hamara is a key component of that effort.
This is not an easy project. The challenges of providing a high quality educational experience to children living in a populous country where one-third of primary school age children are not in school are great. Yet, the creative energy that resides on the Rafi Peer grounds and the drive of the people working there make it apparent that, however difficult, the team will find a way to deliver on its promise.
Sesame Workshop Partners with van Gogh Museum to Celebrate Sesamstraat Anniversary
From left to right: Ernie, Bert, Ienie Menie, Tommie, Elmo, Pino and Purk
On this date in 1853, Vincent Van Gogh was born in Zundert, Netherlands. In October 1888, Van Gogh painted his first version of Bedroom in Arles, an iconic work of post-impressionist art. In December, 2011, Bert, Ernie and Elmo made a couple of… “improvements” to Van Gogh’s masterpiece.
To celebrate the 35th anniversary of Sesamstraat, the Dutch version of Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop partnered with the Amsterdam-based Vincent van Gogh Museum, where Bedroom in Arles hangs, to recreate a version of the famous painting featuring Elmo, Bert, Ernie and the beloved Sesamstraat MuppetsTM Ienie Mienie, Tommie, Purk and Pino. The special painting, which was unveiled by Sesamstraat actor Frank Groothof, was on display at the museum in December 2011.
The loveable puppets from Sim Sim Hamara, the Pakistani version of Sesame Street, recently took part in Pakistan’s 9th annual Folk Festival of Contemporary and Traditional Puppetry. On Wednesday, March 21, before an audience of 2500 children at the Rafi Peer Cultural Center in Lahore, Rani, a beloved Sim Sim Hamara’s puppet, helped inaugurate the festival by cutting a ribbon and releasing hundreds of colorful balloons into the sky. Then Rani and the rest of the Sim Sim Hamara gang spent the rest of International Puppet Day, which marks the first day of the festival, singing the show’s theme song and playing with all the children in attendance.
To learn more about Sim Sim Hamara, Sesame Workshop’s local partner Rafi Peer Theater Workshop, and the rest of the educational efforts in Pakistan, click here. Funding for Sim Sim Hamara is made possible through the support of USAID from the American people.
Sesame Workshop Partners with Planet Water to Promote Water Health in Asia
From the Planet Water PSA starring Elmo
2.6 billion people don’t have access to clean sanitation water and 72% of them live in Asia. Unsafe drinking water is a major cause of diarrhea, which is the second leading killer of children. Over 880 million people in the world lack access to safe drinking water and 55% of them live in Asia.
Water health and hygiene is one of the major issues facing young children in Asia. That’s why Sesame Workshop has teamed up with Planet Water to launch the Asia Water-for-Life project. Beginning in Indonesia and expanding into the Philippines, Vietnam and India over the next few months, this multimedia educational program, which includes a social media campaign and PSAs starring Elmo, teaches children about basic hygienic practices like hand washing and why failing to do so encourages the spread of germs. The beloved Sesame Street MuppetsTM will play a critical role in ensuring young Asian children learn these important lessons.
Another week, another birthday to celebrate here at Sesame Workshop! This week it’s the birthday of Abelardo, the big, curious green parrot who appears on Plaza Sesamo, the Latin American version of Sesame Street. Although Abelardo has been on the show since 1973, he’s only 4-years-old. He shares the optimism and happiness of his cousin Big Bird, but he’s also very interested in the world around him and loves to learn. He’s still learning how to read, but like kids his age he does know the letters of the alphabet. Despite his size, he’s very agile: Abelardo loves to dance, exercise and even roller skate. And did you know that, unlike most of the Sesame Street and Plaza Sesamo MuppetsTM, Abelardo has a last name? His full name is Abelardo Montoya.
To learn more about Abelardo and all the ways Plaza Sesamo MuppetsTM are bringing the building blocks of education to millions of children across Latin America, click here.
Sesame Workshop, Early Years and the Future of Northern Irish Early Education
Since 2008 Sesame Tree, Sesame Workshop’s co-production in Northern Ireland, has been encouraging the children of Northern Ireland to appreciate both the similarities and differences that exist in their society and respect the feelings of other children, no matter their cultural background. We’re excited to announce that Early Years, a Sesame Tree outreach partner, has received a grant from Northern Ireland’s Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL) that will allow the organization to use Sesame Tree-based materials to further our mutual educational goals.
Over the next month, Early Years will help build the infrastructure necessary to make the Sesame Tree program, materials and training resources sustainable in Northern Ireland. Early Years, the largest volunteer organization in Northern Ireland that works with children ages 0-12, will establish a Project Advisory Group made up of leaders from the worlds of education and culture, integrate Sesame Tree materials into its core training activities, and explore further ways the Sesame Tree curriculum can be integrated into cultural institutions and the organizations outreach efforts.
The DCAL is not the only organization that has recognized the impact of Sesame Tree on the lives of Northern Irish children. The show is also a finalist for the prestigious Prix Jeunesse International Prize 2012 in the category of fiction for children up to the age of 6. The award is given to a children’s show that “enables children to see, hear and express themselves and their culture, and that enhances an appreciation and awareness of other cultures.”
Sesame Workshop, Early Years and our Belfast-based production partner Sixteen South are excited that the show is being recognized for its positive influence on the lives of Northern Irish children and that it will be able to continue to encourage those children to celebrate their differences, rather than let them drive each other apart.
Sesame Workshop, the non-profit educational organization behind Sesame Street, is committed to the future of children’s educational media in China. That’s why last week we launched the Sesame Street China website, a new online resource with activities and videos for children and tips for Chinese parents.
Ed. Note: Charlotte Cole is the Senior Vice President of Global Education for Sesame Workshop.
