Sesame and USAID Work Together to Promote Children’s Health and Emotional Wellbeing

By Graydon Gordian

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.

Sisimpur Celebrates Anniversary of USAID with Ambassador to Bangladesh

By Graydon Gordian

It’s an exciting time for Sisimpur, Sesame Street’s co-production in Bangladesh. The cast and crew are looking forward to their seventh season this February, and earlier this month the Sisimpur Muppets^TM helped Dan W. Mozena, the U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh, celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the founding of USAID.

USAID has been working to improve the lives of the people of Bangladesh for all 40 years of the country’s existence, while Sesame Street and Sisimpur have been educating and engaging the children of Bangladesh since 2005. USAID and Sesame Street were fast friends. Our longstanding commitment to literacy and numeracy, cultural appreciation, nutrition and hygiene went hand in hand with the goals USAID has in Bangladesh and around the world.

That’s one of the reasons why Ambassador Mozena stopped by the show and visited with Ikri Mikri, Halum, Tuktuki and Shiku, four of Sisimpur’s beloved Muppet^TM friends. Ambassador Mozena and his Sisimpur pals talked about all the wonderful work USAID does in Bangladesh, and counted to 50 in honor of the organization’s landmark anniversary.

For Sisimpur’s Bangladeshi production team, making the show (the opening of which is above) is both a joy and a challenge. The lessons Bangladeshi children learn about health, cultural awareness and literacy are critical to their development, but given the economic conditions in Bangladesh – many children don’t have access to electricity – the team has to do more than air the show on TV to ensure those lessons get learned. That’s why Sisimpur created a small fleet of rickshaws equipped with a TV and a power generator. The rickshaws can travel to areas the show doesn’t easily reach and play episodes for young children there. That’s just one of the many ways the people behind Sisimpur are using their imaginations to help make the lives of Bangladeshi children more fruitful and filled with laughter and learning.