Arabic Sesame Street helps children explore emotions
Sesame Workshop, the non-governmental organization behind series like "Sesame Street," teamed up with the International Rescue Committee to produce a new show for Middle Eastern children affected by war and displacement.
"Frustrated" was not a word used by five-year-old Tamer until he watched the children's show “Ahlan Simsim," the Arabic version of the "Sesame Street." He learned the word from the show’s blue monster Gargur — Grover in the English-language version — during a lesson on how to express “some of the more difficult feelings,” his mother said.
Tamer joined children from all over Syria last month for a special screening of Sesame Workshop’s new Arabic retooling, which focuses on helping displaced children in Syria and the surrounding region learn to identify and deal with their emotions.
“Helping children and caregivers learn the difference between anger and frustration, for example, can really help them in talking with the people they care about to manage their emotions,” the show’s executive producer Scott Cameron told Al-Monitor.
The show debuted Feb. 2 amid a major military assault against Syrian opposition fighters by the Syrian regime and Russian forces that has fueled the largest displacement of people from the country since war broke out in 2011.
