Sesame Street Debriefing with Gary Knell

Introduction: Gary Knell, President and Chief Executive Officer of Sesame Workshop describes the unique and culturally relevant approach taken to address the development needs of children around the world. Through a brief introduction of "Kami," Takalani Sesame's five year-old HIV-positive muppet, Knell discusses the use of media strategies that have been used to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS. In this way, educationally entertaining (“edutainment”) media (e.g., children’s television, radio and television soap operas, music videos, multimedia CD-ROMs) can be used for HIV education and prevention.

This debriefing provides Sesame Workshop with an opportunity to share best practices in research among international and national organizations across several countries, to facilitate regional and national discussions and program development, and to help identify sources of institutional support. The video can be viewed in its entirety or via shorter clips sorted along the main themes (blue underlined) which emerged during the debriefing.  This debriefing was organized by the Knowledge and Learning Group as part of AFTQK’s knowledge sharing and learning services, and conducted by Nicolas Gorjestani on April 07, 2004. 

Technical requirements: This page is designed for Washington Office/high bandwidth connections, with access to the debriefing provided in Real 10 format. An alternate version of this page for Country Office/low bandwidth users is also available. If your PC does not not yet have the Real 10 player, ask IT to install it.

View full video (42:14 min), download MP3 audio

1.       Introduction: The Origins of Sesame Workshop. The Workshop was created in a specific context - out of the civil rights movement and war on poverty – it was created as a way to use power of television to teach children and prepare them for school. 35 years later it has become a 300-person non-profit – whose mission is to use media to help children reach their full potential, around the world (33 sec – 3:48 min).

2.       Focus on Development How is it that Sesame Street became involved in issues related to development and was able to build a platform of development issues? ”We began by building educational partnerships with organizations like UNICEF, devoted to identifying children’s needs in various markets - and used development resources to make that happen. The larger niche we fill is about fulfilling children’s needs (3:48 - 6:47 min).

3.       Adaptation of Programming Models to Local Needs and cultural contexts. Sesame Workshop went to work in those areas where there was the largest immediate need, such as South Africa. The idea was to, mirror the diversity of the national context and to “engage the next generation of children and to bridge the languages and ethnicities, which had been marginalized.” Part of this involved the effort to broach the culturally relevant and delicate subjects including HIV AIDS and its impact on children (6:47 – 8:41 min).

4.       Kami, the HIV AIDS- Positive Muppet from South African Takalani Sesame. Kami is able to educate children on HIV Aids and to successfully humanize the disease for this audience (8:41 - 13:09 min).

5.       Project Support by the South African Government. This was an issue that the government recognized did need to be addressed. The context was a government working to build a multi-racial society, it was natural to also address issues of social justice. “This really came from them.” It “is not a bunch of Americans who are trying to tell the world what’s good for them. This is about building capacity and having an indigenous point of view about what the priorities might be in a given country - it really depends on where we are and what our partners want to focus on that drives the work of our organization” (13:09 – 15:14 min).

6.       Local Partners and Capacity Building. Two main challenges include having the technical capacity to know how to produce television at the local level. Second is having the financial resources and theright funders who can support what we are doing. “Empowering local partners is critical and we are making that happen” (15:14 – 17:50 min).

7.       Behavioural Characteristics of Successful Staff and Producers Having the right staff is key to enhancing the empowerment process. It is important to be flexible and entrepreneurial, and to learn to live with ambiguity. Also important is, “knowing how to make one plus a half equal two, finding a way to stretch resources to keep your eye on the end product. The most important thing is understanding that all of these connections have to be localized - there is not a one size fits all model“ (17:50 – 19:23 min).

8.       Use of Role Models to Convey Critical Messages. “The secret of working with kids in the third world is to engage the appropriate cultural champions – people who can support the issues” (19:23 – 21:48 min)

9.       Role of the Media in Fulfilling the Development Agenda. Various media have been used to reach audiences, including radio to extend the reach of the program. In order for children to engage and model behaviours they are able to personalize, informal education media must be “affordable, accessible and appealing to those who need to learn from them” (21:48 – 26:17 min).

10.       Partnerships and the Role of Adapted Media. How do we deal with these issues as the populations grows? The program needs to find the right platform to reach the most important niches and widest possible audiences. “It will help to figure out partnerships with local broadcasters, and distribution points through the private sector” (26:17 – 28:49 min).

11.       How to Measure Impact There are both quantitative and qualitative measures. Quantitative measures include the ratings that test the reach of a show. The qualitative measures take more time to track, and are the hardest parts of the project to fund. “From the qualitative standpoint, we need to find out whether children are gathering the messages you want them to gather from a given program. We do formative research at the beginning of the project, evaluative research in the middle of the process, and finally a summative evaluation“ (28:49 – 31:29 min).

12.       Sesame Workshop Video – Elements of Outreach for Social Issues and Adaptation/Customisation to international and unique cultural contexts (31:29 – 34:30 min).

13.       Future Steps - Where do we go from Here? The country needs to support projects of this kind on its own merits, through the marketplace. We strive to reverse the tide of global media conglomerate control of television production and distribution. “We are trying to push - towards a democratisation of local voices so we can ensure that the technology sophistication of the workshop is being transferred to indigenous productions in developing countries. We work with local child development experts and educators and government ministers to decide themselves what are the appropriate messages that need to be promoted within a set of appropriate development guidelines” (34:30 – 37:51 min).

14.       Regional Expansion of Efforts. We are currently involved in spear-heading a project in Bangladesh, and will be in India within a year – a huge prospect where there is a hundred million pre-schoolers. We are also expanding our work in Takalani Sesame and South Africa to other provinces within South Africa, and building on our work in Egypt through a large grant. Would like opportunity to partner with the Bank as well (37:51 - 39:00 min).

15.       Concluding Remarks The Bank holds a unique role, and development practitioners should have the right behavioural characteristics. These include flexibility, and the ability to appreciate and respecting the local adaptations of a given cultural situation. “It is not about one size fits all. There is a niche to fill, there is a lack of quality TV that is not imported from other countries around the world, where the cultural issues do not fit the problems of the context they reach. Must build in a program that will speak to the needs to children in Cambodia or Vietnam, Botswana. That’s what our goal is (39:00 – 42:14 min).