AudiencScapes

The U.S.-based Sesame Street exports its signature brand of education through puppetry to nearly 20 countries around the world. Here, AudienceScapes offers in-depth profiles of two collaborations in South Asia. Sesame Street began with a vision of educating underprivileged American children using the popular medium of television. While most international co-productions are pursued in that same spirit, the realities of limited access to television have generated some inventive modifications.

Read about rickshaw viewing events in Bangladesh to reach their large population of illiterate children. Sesame Street’s hallmark emphasis on depicting the diversity of children and families is one of the key features of the international versions – Muppets are created who speak local languages and dress in ways representing each nation’s various ethnic groups. In Pakistan, this emphasis on giving the program an indigenous flavor is considered key to avoiding adverse reactions from the country’s militant elements.

Sesame Street Comes to Pakistan

The local production of the world-famous children’s program will augment the now-meager offerings of educational TV shows for children. AudienceScapes fellow Sonya Rehman reports that the project faces challenges, namely a hostile climate for cultural productions in the country.

By Sonya Rehman

Lahore, Pakistan -- The beloved U.S. television program “Sesame Street” now has international co-productions in 18 countries. Beginning early next year, a 19th country will be added: Pakistan. Like the productions of Sesame Street in every other nation, the Sesame Workshop will be collaborating with a local production company; in this case, the Rafi Peer Theater Workshop. And as in other countries, the Pakistan version will give special consideration to incorporating local cultures and languages into the program. But perhaps unlike most other collaborations, the Pakistan Sesame Street has to contend with a political climate that can be hostile to theatrical productions.

Sesame Street, Pakistan edition, is part of the $20 million ‘Pakistan Children Television Project’ funded by USAID. It will provide Pakistani children with entertainment and education through television programs, radio shows and “600 live puppet performances and video shows to various rural areas,” according to USAID Pakistan’s website.

The Risks of Producing a Pakistani Sesame Street

While the educational goals of Sesame Street may seem benign, the Pakistani production may not be viewed this way by all Pakistanis. Shahid Nadeem, a well-known Pakistani theater playwright of the local socially conscious theater group, Ajoka, advises the producers to be cautious.

“When approaching young Pakistani children, one must not forget to keep the cultural context in mind,” said Nadeem. “One has to be very careful, keeping in mind the needs of the audience and the culture of people that the project is catering to. Sesame Street has been very popular for urban middle-class children, but minor indiscretions can cause a lot of problems.”

Here, Nadeem is referring to fundamentalist elements within the country, whom the project will avoid upsetting primarily for two reasons. First, the Rafi Peer Theater Workshop has twice been a target for terrorist attacks in the span of three years. Second, the fact that the project is funded by the United States will raise suspicions among fundamentalists.

Therefore, argues Nadeem, it is imperative that the project take pains to feel as homegrown as possible.

“The characters, the syllabus and the message – all have to be 99.9 percent indigenously correct and developed, and not imported from abroad,” said Nadeem. “Talking to Pakistani grassroots activists would be very important as the Rafi Peer group has been marked by these elements and therefore needs to be careful.”

A young Pakistani filmmaker, Sarah Tareen, echoes Nadeem’s concerns yet believes that it is important that such a project thrive. Currently in Pakistan, she said, “there is an urgent need to fill the vacuum in the cultural sector, as most cultural activities, concerts and events, such as the Rafi Peer’s World Performing Arts Festival, have come to a standstill due to terrorist threats.”

“It is also an important time to tell our stories in the provincial languages to the younger generation as now schools are introducing subjects in Punjabi, Sindhi, etc and incorporating our folk tales in the curriculum,” said Tareen. “In my opinion, narrative and storytelling is the best way to educate.”

Nevertheless, reiterating Nadeem’s advice, Tareen believes the Rafi Peer Theater Workshop would have to tread carefully while formulating the project’s characters and scripts. Pushing stereotypes and the propagation of any sort of sensitive agenda must be avoided. Instead, Sesame Street will have a better chance at success by focusing on its core function – and that is, educating its audience about health and hygiene, basic math skills, and presenting the children of Pakistan an audiovisual amalgamation of education and entertainment.

The State of Children’s Television in Pakistan

Currently, there are few national television shows here for children. In fact, in households that have the privilege of having cable TV subscriptions, children prefer tuning into American channels such as Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Disney, rather than local TV programs targeted toward children. This is primarily due to the complete lack of good quality, entertainment shows on national television.

It wasn’t always this way. Before the Pakistani media explosion, Pakistani children grew up watching local shows such as “Ainak Wala Jin” -- translated as “The Bespectacled Genie” -- and the much-loved puppet show “Uncle Sargam,” among others.

The Pakistani version of Sesame Street will broadcast socially relevant episodes (for both television and radio) in four of the main provincial languages. Nearly half of the project’s target population remains uneducated and underprivileged. Will the myriad of giggly Muppets – targeted toward rural Pakistanis – gain an audience?

Shahzada Irfan Ahmed, a Pakistani senior reporter at The News on Sunday, has extensively covered the country’s education sector. He believes that the project will likely be a success because it offers a more stimulating form of education than children receive in schools.

“Our public education system encourages rote and has no provision for interactive learning, which makes the learning process extremely painful for children,” said Ahmed.

Ahmed is optimistic about the Sesame Street-Rafi Peer collaboration. The Rafi Peer Theater Workshop is best known for their role in the growth of art and culture in Pakistan, especially their puppet festivals in the 90s and their performing arts festivals.

“It will give Pakistani children access to gripping content in their regional and national languages,” said Ahmed. “They will easily assimilate whatever they see and hear without even realizing that it’s a part of their education. Education through entertainment would definitely be the hallmark of this program.”

The U.S.-based Sesame Street exports its signature brand of education through puppetry to nearly 20 countries around the world. Here, AudienceScapes offers in-depth profiles of two collaborations in South Asia. Sesame Street began with a vision of educating underprivileged American children using the popular medium of television. While most international co-productions are pursued in that same spirit, the realities of limited access to television have generated some inventive modifications.

Read about rickshaw viewing events in Bangladesh [article below] to reach their large population of illiterate children. Sesame Street’s hallmark emphasis on depicting the diversity of children and families is one of the key features of the international versions – Muppets are created who speak local languages and dress in ways representing each nation’s various ethnic groups. In Pakistan, this emphasis on giving the program an indigenous flavor is considered key to avoiding adverse reactions from the country’s militant elements.

The Muppets Take Bangladesh

The Bangladeshi version of Sesame Street has been embraced as a program that celebrates Bengali culture while elevating the skills of young children. An outreach program ensures that lack of access to a TV or electricity doesn’t prevent children from watching.

By Paromita Pain

Since the Bangladesh version of Sesame Street, Sisimpur, made its debut on television five years ago, it evolved into a robust educational media project. In part this is because Sisimpur doesn’t end when the television is switched off. Dr. June H. Lee, the Director of Global Education for Sesame Workshop, explains that Sisimpur “has both television and outreach components to serve the needs of young Bangladeshi children.”

The outreach component is critical because much of rural Bangladesh has little or no access to television. This is further compromised by the lack of steady electricity in many areas. Delivering Sisimpur to its child audience involves coordinating with various agencies that will make sure the audiences have access to the programs. Sesame Workshop has teamed up with Save the Children and other agencies to organize weekly community viewings in Bangladesh’s more remote regions. Rickshaw vans holding a TV, DVD player, and generator now deliver Sisimpur episodes at these weekly gatherings. Often held under trees or in school buildings if the weather is bad, each viewing session has about 60 children sitting on mats. As they watch, facilitators often stop the show to ask questions, involve the audience and make sure the experience is interactive.

To supplement the television program, educational outreach kits are distributed to parents and caregivers. These kits are designed to help children better understand and assimilate Sisimpur’s messages. Sisimpur’s outreach team trains caregivers (mostly mothers) from disadvantaged communities in how to use the kits in a series of workshops. Most of the caregivers are not literate, but the training emphasizes how they can still engage in educational activities (like storytelling) with their children using materials from the kit. As a result, the kits serves a dual purpose of providing educational content to young children, and offering materials around which caregivers could engage their children.

The first of the kits—focusing on health, hygiene and nutrition—was distributed in November 2005 (the first season of the program). Researchers examined the differences among control and intervention groups in health, hygiene, and nutrition outcomes and discovered the kits had a measurable, positive impact.

Local Partnerships are Central
All productions of Sesame Street outside the United States are co-produced with a local partner. Sisimpur was created by the New York-based Sesame Workshop in partnership with Nayantara Communications, a Bangladesh production company in Dhaka. Nayantara produces the show.

Sesame Workshop director Lee explains that, while Bangladesh demonstrated a “tremendous need for a program like Sesame Street,” it also offered the “resources exist to potentially support it.” Financial support comes from both the governments of Bangladesh and the United States, through USAID.

Sisimpur features four Muppets specially developed for Bangladesh. The characters include: Halum, a cheerful tiger who has the ability to laugh even when things go wrong; Shiku, a clever and inventive jackal; Tuktuki, an extroverted and inquisitive 5-year-old girl who likes to learn everything about the world, and Ikri Mikri, an affectionate and imaginative 3-year-old whose plans don’t always work out.

Measuring the Muppet Effect
Impact studies conducted in the years since its debut have revealed that Sisimpur improves children’s educational skills, especially crucial in this developing nation. Most Bangladeshi children end up working for the family before age 10. About 80 percent of the country’s child populations drops out of school before starting middle school or never goes at all.

One study found that, compared to peers who did not watch Sisimpur, children who viewed only 10 episodes of the series demonstrated significantly greater gains in skill acquisition in a range of curricular areas (e.g., vocabulary, cognitive skills, counting, recognizing disability, recognizing musical instruments, and citizenship) when tested before and after exposure.

Another study suggested that Sisimpur possesses a cultural value for various communities in Bangladesh. Children are actively engaged when they watch the show, and caregivers view Sisimpur as “good for children” and valuable for its educational and pro-social content. It is widely regarded as a Bangladeshi program that is particularly valued for its depiction of traditional Bengali rural culture. Mothers who watch it report thinking in more reflexive ways about the task of parenting and also draw on the music and stories of Sisimpur to enrich their relationships with children.

Commenting on the various studies showing the benefits of Sisimpur to the young children who watch it, Lee said: “These findings are encouraging and help to confirm the value of what we are doing. Sisimpur is not only a beloved program among Bangladeshi children; it has great potential to contribute positively to their development.”

Related Research:

Beyond a Free Media: Defining Media Challenges in Pakistan

News Television in Pakistan: A Study in Socio-Economic Differences

Sonya Rehman, a Pakistani journalist, has been writing for over six years. A Fulbright Scholar, Sonya returned to her birth city, Lahore, in 2010, after completing an MS in Journalism at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Currently, she is teaching journalism at the Lahore School of Economics as a Visiting Faculty member for a semester.

Recent Articles by Sonya
Pakistan: Facebook and the Monsoon Flood

Pakistan: Citizen Journalism Takes Hold

Paromita Pain has been employed with The Hindu Newspaper, Chennai, India since January 2003. She writes for young people on a range of themes, with a special interest in media for young people, health issues, human rights and youth in situations of conflict. She can be reached at paromita.pain@gmail.com.
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Boosting India’s Community Health Workers
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