Kara Koch is the Production Coordinator in Sesame Workshop’s International Creative department. She works on co-productions in Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Israel, South Africa, and the Gulf.

Screening and dissecting videos. Writing treatments. Operating a camera, microphone, and light board. Taking written and oral exams.

You might think these are things only college students would be doing in an advanced film course, but if you are a 12-year-old kid in Bangladesh’s Rural Live Action Film Program, they are just the sort of skills you will learn to master in just a few months.

The local team behind Sisimpur, the Bangladeshi version of Sesame Street, has developed and refined this seven-month training program since its inception in 2003. Students are selected from regions all over the country and, with the cooperation of their parents and schools, they are given the opportunity to experience filmmaking in a way often reserved for industry professionals.

After demonstrating their creativity and storytelling ability by way of written questionnaires and in-person interviews, about 20 students are selected to participate in the full production process. They begin by learning how to pitch a story and move on to studying camera angles and shot composition. When the day comes to get out on location, each student literally calls the shots as the director and camera op for his or her film. The rest of the students work as a team and assume on-set responsibilities such as lighting, sound, and props manager. With the help of Sisimpur editors, the students round out the course by learning post-production techniques during a visit to the city of Dhaka.

Drawing on their own backgrounds and personal experiences, these students have created unique films on topics such as craft making, caring for animals, and a variety of cultural foods, festivals, and music. Over 160 films have come out of this program in just 7 seasons of Sisimpur. Every film produced is broadcast in at least one episode of the series – an impressive credit for kids who haven’t even reached high school!

Some filmmakers have even brought the process full circle by returning to help train the next season of students. At Sesame we spend a lot of time trying to tell stories for kids. The Sisimpur team has found a remarkable way to showcase stories by kids. By training and encouraging the next generation of storytellers, it’s no wonder our “longest street” continues to stretch out ahead of us.

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The American Street overflows with giggling faces, neighbors congregating on city stoops, and friends playing jump rope. Sunny days and furry faces fill the Street, the symbolic artery through which so much history and learning flows.

The Indian Galli (alleyway) explodes with color and pulses with a rhythmic drumbeats. A caravan of diverse faces cheers as it zooms past smiling pink and blue storefronts and a technicolor lion kicking a soccer ball. The Galli is a familiar scene, a fantastical heaven tucked away in the dense city.

Both of these streets tell stories – stories of childhood, stories of community, and stories of culture. As an intern at Sesame Workshop and an anthropology student, I wanted to explore these stories in my senior thesis.

After working at Sesame Workshop in Global Education, Research & Outreach as an intern for a year and with the encouragement of a wise mentor, I decided to apply for funding to support a summer of original ethnographic research in India. Much to my mother’s chagrin, I traded in my ninth summer at camp in Wisconsin to explore the life of Muppets on the other side of the world.

When my rickshaw rolled up to the door of Sesame Workshop India in New Delhi, it hit me: I was experiencing, firsthand, what so many people back in the New York office described as “the longest street in the world.” Sesame Workshop India, the only wholly-owned subsidiary of Sesame Workshop in the world, is a lean machine comprised of a bold, fast, sharp team. Not only does this thirty-odd person office drive the production of Galli Galli Sim Sim (the Indian co-production of Sesame Street) radio and television shows that reach over 90% of television-owning families, but they also collaborate with national early childhood education experts to organize policy-oriented advocacy. They also just recently launched a franchise of after-schools and pre-schools called Sesame Schoolhouse, the first of their kind. And if that isn’t enough, this tiny team makes serious dents in school readiness and hygiene educational needs in India, a country where, if all the children broke off and made their own country, they would be the third largest in the world.

After a few days in the office and with the help of the supportive Sesame Workshop India team, I quickly identified a feasible research plan. In 2011 Sesame Workshop India was developing a Healthy Habits radio program intended to be distributed to a number of community radio stations. This particular series was designed in installments in a way that allowed flexibility for local adaptations. When I was in Delhi they were just beginning to roll out this initiative in a sizable migrant labor community on the periphery of Gurgaon, a major satellite city of Delhi. The community radio station, Gurgaon Ki Awaaz, took the material and tailored it to the needs of its audience, playing folk music from Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh –many of the migrant laborers’ home states – and addressing issues that were specific to the community’s needs. And, taking full advantage of radio as a flexible and communicative medium, the community radio station engaged callers in conversation surrounding education, water, employment, and safety.

As I conducted interviews with mothers, kids, teachers, and radio producers it became clear to me: everyone wants to consume high-quality media that speaks to them and, perhaps even more importantly, everyone wants to speak. The Sesame material served as an inspiration for the The Galli Galli Sim Sim community radio program, which provided a safe, educational and accessible space for some of the most marginalized families in the world.

That’s a Street of which I am proud to be a part.

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Since November 2011, Baghch-E-Simsim, the Afghan version of Sesame Street, has brought laughter and important lessons about literacy, numeracy and cultural awareness to the children of Afghanistan. We’re excited to share with you this behind-the-scenes look at how one of our newest international co-productions gets made. To learn more about how Baghch-E-Simsim gets made, click here. To learn more about our work in Afghanistan, click here.

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Afghan children in Herat province listen to Baghch-e-Simsim with their mothers.

While Sesame Workshop is best known for the educational television programs we produce both in the United States and around the world, we believe many forms of technology, both old and new, can be an effective way of bringing learning and laughter to children. That’s why an accompanying radio production has been a big part of the success of Baghch-e-Simsim, the Afghan version of Sesame Street. In Afghanistan many households don’t have television; the radio broadcast allows us to ensure that lessons about literacy, numeracy and cultural understanding reach as many children in the country as possible.

In the United States, when we mention iconic Sesame Street Muppets like Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie, images of the characters immediately come to mind. But for the children whose only contact with the characters is the Baghch-e-Simsim radio program, they have to imagine what the characters look like. Periodically, around special events like festivals or the New Year, Afghan children send in drawings of Baghch-e-Simsim to the radio stations it airs on and we get a chance to see how their imaginations have brought the show to life. Equal Access, Sesame Workshop’s Afghanistan based radio production partner of Baghch-e-Simsim, sent us some of the children’s drawings they had received, and we wanted to share them with you.

A drawing by Noorina Atta Zada in Kabul province.

A drawing sent in by Jalal ud din in Nangarhar province

Drawings by Nazifa and Shafiq, children in the Nanagar province of Afghanistan.

A drawing of the classic Sesame Street characters by Muhammad Imran, a child in Kapisa, Afghanistan.

A drawing by Kamran and Umer, two children from Nangarhar province.

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Congratulations to the entire Sesamstrasse team for making young children in Germany laugh and learn for the last 40 years.

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This article originally appeared on the Sesame Workshop India site. VisitSesameWorkshopIndia.org to learn more about Galli Galli Sim Sim and all the wonderful work Sesame Workshop India does to improve the lives of and educate the children of India.

Sesame Workshop in India is committed to sustainable projects that enrich children’s lives long after our work is complete. We do this through partnerships, local development, and by investing in the furry heart of our programs—the puppeteers themselves.

Folk traditions of string puppets and shadow puppetry flourished in India long before our Galli Galli Sim Sim television show arrived in 2006. Yet the program’s Muppets represent something new: a sense of humor and emotional depth that connects powerfully with children and opens them to all types of learning.

It’s this quality that attracted actor Manish Sachdeva, whose work with Sesame Street in India has transformed into an enduring passion. Despite having no puppetry experience before his audition for Galli Galli Sim Sim, Manish was chosen from among 2,000 actors to begin training with master Muppeteers from Sesame Street in the U.S. Learning the unusual art of video puppetry took weeks of hands-on mentorship and many rounds of video critiques.

Manish’s character Boombah the Lion is a playful big brother known to a generation of Indian children. Even during training, Manish was urged to explore Boombah’s persona and make him as real as possible. “I started asking ‘What’s his chemistry with other characters? What does he think?’” recalls Manish. “As an artist, you play with it and make it your own.”

The experience—artistic, technical, and social—was excellent preparation for Manish’s next big role. At the end of his tenure on Galli Galli Sim Sim, he started building his own puppets and a company of artists to bring them to life—The Puppet Studio. In its first year, the group produced numerous videos, hosted workshops for children and aspiring puppeteers, and staged an all-puppet version of “The Wizard of Oz.” And Manish is dreaming even bigger, with ambitions for a feature film and TV series that expand the legacy of Muppets in India.

By investing in puppeteers like Manish, Sesame Workshop in India is helping to nurture an art form that can move people in profound ways, giving a voice not only to artists but to children who might otherwise have none.

Living proof is Ghazal Javed, the voice and hands behind Chamki, the much-loved star of Galli Galli Sim Sim. India’s leading woman puppeteer, Ghazal’s career with Sesame Street in India started during her final college exams in 2005. She’s been immersed in puppetry ever since, parlaying her time on the show into a dizzying array of projects, including scriptwriting, documentaries, a soap opera, performing at the Cricket World Cup, and a high-profile government campaign to promote girls’ education.

But her most rewarding work, she says, happens more quietly. In 2011, Ghazal and her partner, who plays the character Googly on Galli Galli Sim Sim, brought a month-long puppet workshop to an orphanage in the embattled region of Kashmir. Working with children whose lives have been torn apart by war, Ghazal worked to create a safe space for them to share their stories.

Ghazal recalls one girl who wrote about how her father was gunned down by militants. At first, she struggled through tears to put words to her tale. Then she picked up a puppet.

“She grabbed this puppet, which she made,” Ghazal says, “and she stood up in front of everyone. She told about losing her parents and how she came to the orphanage. She didn’t flinch. She did it all confidently—with a smile.”

Behold the power of puppets.

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Dr. Fuster, who hails from Barcelona, Spain, is the former president of the American Heart Association and the World Heart Foundation. As the Chair of the Committee on Preventing the Global Epidemic of Cardiovascular Disease for the Institute of Medicine (IOM), he is a prominent advocate for cardiovascular health around the globe.

Barrio Sésamo’s Dr. Ruster may not be as achieved as his real life inspiration, but he’s equally dedicated to helping keep hearts healthy. In the Muppet doctor’s own words, “I have dedicated myself to that miraculous, beautiful organ… the heart!  My heart jumps at the chance to spend time with my furry friends in Barrio Sésamo. We love to exercise and eat scrumptious fruits and veggies together. But most of all, I just love to talk to my friends helping them get to the heart of any matter.”

Dr. Fuster, who first collaborated with Sesame Workshop in 2006 to promote cardiovascular health in Colombia, serves as an international advisor on Sesame Workshop’s Global Health Initiative. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death around the world, and the goal of the initiative is to measure health improvements in children and build global partnerships to address their critical health issues. Many studies show that childhood obesity leads to cardiovascular disease, thru an increase in cardiovascular disease risk factors such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol. In 2010 the number of overweight children under the age of five globally was estimated to be over 42 million.

To learn more about Dr. Fuster and the work he does to promote cardiovascular health, visit MountSinai.org.

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The site, which launched on May 30, is targeted at the parents and teachers of children ages 4-8, as well as the children themselves. The site includes games that help teach concepts that are critical for school readiness, “tips” and parental guides for caregivers, and introductions to Tonton, Juljul and Elmo, the furry friends children see when they watch Hikayat SimSim. Over time additional games, videos and stories will be added to the site as well.

Since 2003, when Hikayat SimSim first aired, Sesame Workshop has been helping the children of Jordan acquire the educational foundation necessary to achieve their full potential. As an organization we have a firm belief that educational messages are better retained if experienced on multiple platforms. That is why we are so excited to add an online component to our educational efforts in Jordan.

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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.

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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.

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