Children's TV? Sara Abou Bakr broaches the latest "Why should we decide what children should watch?" asks Ibrahim Tori, head of the Egyptian Bureau of Plan International Organisation. "Let us hear their voices instead." This, in a nutshell, is the bureau's initiative -- to air radio and TV shows produced by children. According to Noha El-Sayed, bureau communication director, "it was our consultant Mimi Brizao who first started the initiative -- an idea first implemented in West Africa and Bangladesh -- which was met with phenomenal success." On visiting Egypt in November 2005, however, Brizao's advice was to concentrate on television -- the more effective means to outreach due to, among other things, high illiteracy rates. "Afternoon programmes are a family ritual," El-Sayed explains, even among the poorest. Somewhat surprisingly, the Plan-Egypt Initiative -- one of 62 around the world -- had few funding problems, partly because the headquarters in Finland were very enthusiastic. Together with Nokia-Finland, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) readily provided $954,938. According to El-Sayed, "we have four main partners. Each is vital for the success of a certain aspect of the endeavour." The first, the Egyptian Television, guarantees convenient air time; the second, the Al-Karama Edutainment Company (best known for the Arabic Sesame Street) will undertake production. Both the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) will offer its expertise while the American University in Cairo (AUC) will provide volunteers -- to organise, train and monitor some 72 children to be selected from 12 "youth clubs" affiliated to the Community Development Associations (CDA) in Greater Cairo, Alexandria and Beheira. This group will act as mediators between the child and the adult populations. Each club will provide six children aged 12-18, and each group of six will be given 11 weeks to come up with and produce a show. Plan-Egypt, El-Sayed adds, will first train the AUC volunteers to deal with children. "The children will be from a variety of backgrounds, with the full range of social status, educational qualifications and even physical abilities." As per the encouragement of the NCCM, special needs too will be included. According to Mushira Khattab, NCCM secretary-general, "they should be socially integrated, becoming productive entities, not liabilities." Tori says the initiative will produce 54 20-minute episodes a year, to be aired once a week in Arabic over a two-year period; there will be efforts to facilitate the children's work and provide them with a schedule that does not negatively impact their studies, El-Sayed adds, reassuringly for parents. As Al-Karama CEO Amr Quora explains, the children will be involved at every level and during every phase -- not only participating in the programme but generating ideas and working behind the camera together with the Al-Karama staff. This is not the first such initiative. Last year UNICEF produced Sotna (Our Voice), a TV report programme for children by children. As Simon Ingram, UNICEF's communication chief puts it, "the main difference is the location. While Plan is focussing on Cairo, we targeted Upper Egypt; and we had 16 boys and girls to produce the show." Sotna was broadcast on two local channels as well as the Nile TV Family Channel, and children were involved in all aspects of production, down to hand-held cameras with which to film themselves at home. But working in Upper Egypt presented difficulties. It's a different culture, not only for a foreigner, but even for someone from Cairo. At first, Ingram recalls, we had to reassure the parents that children, especially girls, would be taken care of, always chaperoned. "We had to prove that gender didn't hinder one's ability to produce a TV report," he adds. UNICEF offered Plan-Egypt the benefit of its first-hand experience, and its representatives have been graciously included in the initiative's steering committee. Having this first-hand experience of working with children is quite valuable. That's why UNICEF offered its knowledge base, and help, to Plan-Egypt who graciously accepted and included the former as part of the steering committee. "We are not in competition," says Ingram. "It's an important initiative and we want to help." Nor is there any disagreement about that. For her part, Khattab stresses the children's right to be heard, saying that adults don't always tackle those issues that interest them. The traditional method of production, in which an adult coach tells the child what to say before the camera, is "no longer acceptable", she says. And this is the very point of the initiative: that children should be integrated in society at large and given a voice with which to express themselves, while not forgetting the need to work against negative social tendencies. But it is by no means intended as a replacement for the parents' role. As Tori says, "back home we have a saying: 'if you are more concerned for the child than the child's mother, then you want to eat it.' All we can do is try and encourage parents to do the right thing." And that's what the programme aims at -- to prod adults to listen to children -- but "we want to be doing this on the widest possible national scale." Based on his previous experience, Ingram predicts some of the difficulties ahead: "children have an immense amount of energy, and if properly employed it can have amazing results; but that same energy can make them wildly unmanageable." A delicate balance is required, but it need not be culturally specific: "children are the same everywhere. Only perhaps in Egypt they can be louder and more boisterous." But for Tori this is but "the seed" of something much bigger: "we aim at instigating a new mould, one that can be used by others."
