CAIRO: Mere moments after turning on the television, you can see that four-year-old Khokha has an ingenuous exuberance. Her perennial questioning is almost as inextinguishable as her imagination. As she sings about her career ambitions (the short list includes becoming a lawyer, an astronaut, a doctor, and a truck driver) Khokha's resourcefulness and passion for learning emanate from the screen. It's hard not to get hooked. In fact, over one million Egyptian children, and adults, tune in to see Khokha each day. Khokha is one of three muppets who star in the Egyptian version of Sesame Street, called "Alam Simsim. The show, which educates young children on issues such as health, reading, math and social responsibility, announced its tenth anniversary celebration on Sunday. The celebration included a two-day conference and was held at the Four Seasons Hotel, during which local and international experts discussed the future of Alam Simsim in Egypt. Despite the show's success, the tenth anniversary also marks the end of USAID funding and the start of new financial challenges for the program. According to USAID's website, it allocated eight million dollars over ten years to producing Alam Simsim through a girls' education grant. Now that the grant is ending, USAID has offered a bridge grant to Alam Simsim until new sponsors are found. The question of funding loomed large in the minds of every participant at this week's conference as they thought about how to continue the show's success. "What we are working on with Sesame Workshop is to find sponsors locally who will continue to support Alam Simsim like we had in [our] earlier years, said Dina Amin, vice president of programming and content at Al-Karma Edutainment. "USAID is willing to bridge fund us while we are doing that. They really believe in us because the work speaks for itself. We have tried really hard, and I think we have succeeded in bringing out something that is Egyptian and that is making a difference in Egypt. It's a good thing; it's worth staying on the screen. Other countries have had to deal with the transition from USAID and government funding to private funding. Emile Terblanche, vice president of marketing at Sanlam, a financial services corporation, discussed how his company became Sesame Street's or "Takalani Sesame's main corporate sponsor in South Africa. Terblanche showed how sponsoring Takalani Sesame had cost Sanlam only about $5 million dollars over five years, but has paid off exponentially as Sanlam has established a socially responsible image and spread its name to many more potential customers through its connection to the show. This conference showcased the possibilities for private companies in partnerships with Sesame Street, yet Alam Simsim does not know where its funding will come from after USAID leaves. According to Gary Knell, president and CEO of Sesame Workshop, he and his colleagues have been working with Alam Simsim to solicit corporate sponsorship. Several multi-national corporations were present at the conference's gala with First Lady Suzanne Mubarak on Sunday, and Anita Stewart, Sesame Workshop's vice president of corporate marketing, has been working with Alam Simsim employees to meet with private companies. Knell would not say which companies Alam Simsim is courting because they have no definite commitments from anyone. He said that he sees a lot of private sector interest in Alam Simsim, but is not sure how sincere this interest is. Taher Helmy, President of the American Chamber of Commerce, was hopeful about private sponsorship of Alam Simsim. "This is not something businesses should do as charity. This is a necessity to our business, to have a strong, safe, healthy society. Giving back to our community is the safeguard of our economy, he said. Though Helmy has not discussed the specifics of supporting Alam Simsim with his colleagues, he said that he plans to bring the idea to the Chamber's Social Responsibility Committee soon. The positive results of Alam Simsim in improving a variety of social issues have been documented in many studies. "It started as a dream about using television, said Knell. "We understand that television is a powerful teacher. The fact is that children are learning from television - the question is what are they learning? According to a report published by M. Federowicz, M. E. Figueroa and R. N. Rimal through the John Hopkins Center for Communications Programs, four-year-olds who regularly watch Alam Simsim show higher achievement in reading and math than five-year-olds who have little or no exposure to the series. Children who watch the show also display more equitable attitudes about gender relations. Furthermore, a study published by Social Planning, Analysis and Administration Consultants (SPAAC) showed that viewing Alam Simsim also helped children with less socioeconomic privilege and few educational opportunities catch up to their well-off peers who have access to private pre-school resources in literacy and math. "It's not saying that girls can, girls can, girls can, it's showing that girls and boys can. And that girls can dream and boys can dream and girls can do anything and boys can do anything. Just like a girl wants to be an astronaut and go to school, a boy can cook and clean the house, said Amin. "It's not about favoring the girl, it's about having them as partners in everyday life. With its moral and educational messages, Alam Simsim has great potential as a catalyst for social improvement. Helmy believes that Alam Simsim's focus on education in conjunction with social responsibility and morals could be the key to economic development. "We [business leaders] are looking for young people who have the right balance of character and ethical standards and values, Helmy said in his presentation. "The kind of peaceful culture that [Alam Simsim] instills is essential. Alam Simsim is an "edutainment series and explores all aspects of early childhood education, such as literacy and math, health, hygiene, safety, social responsibility and relationships with others are conveyed in fun and culturally-appropriate ways for two-to six-year-olds. Through the experiences of Khokha, her two male muppet friends Filfil and Nimnim, as well as a supporting cast of human characters, Egyptian children are exposed to important lessons about themselves and their surroundings. Khokha's rendering of "an Egyptian girl as an active and dynamic individual who is just as capable as her male counterparts has been a groundbreaking innovation in a culture that traditionally entrenches gender stereotypes. Al- Karma Productions, the Egyptian company that produces Alam Simsim, partnered with the US-based company Sesame Workshop which provided them with training and technical support. Sesame Workshop has 40 years of knowledge and experience in Sesame Street programming all over the world. With their American partners, Egyptian child development experts, early childhood education experts and teachers worked in conjunction with Egyptian writers and directors to guarantee that the series had a culturally familiar setting and context and that its educational content was effectively delivered. To date, Al-Karma Edutainment has created 230 half-hour episodes, with the help of a USAID grant focusing on initiatives in girl's education, which funded the first six seasons of Alam Simsim. Alam Simsim has also partnered with other international aid programs to expand its reach and impact. It is working with USAID's National Book Project to create and distribute Alam Simsim books to Egyptian schools, as part of its literacy program. It also has relationships with the World Food Program and Egypt's National Council on Childhood and Motherhood. Al-Karma Productions created an extensive outreach program using Alam Simsim to teach people about health, education and gender equity. To date, the outreach program is active in 147 villages in seven governorates across Egypt including Cairo, Alexandria, Fayoum, Beni Suef, Minya and Aswan. Al-Karma's outreach methodology is basic: create a curriculum that outlines the messages in Alam Simsim in a format appealing to parents and teachers, and encourage them to adopt healthier practices in all areas of life. The outreach program focuses mainly on disenfranchised areas. Its goal is to both provide information about health, safety, gender equality, child development and ultimately better parenting skills to the mothers, a vast majority of whom are illiterate, and better teaching-skills to the educators. "We are very worried about what will happen, said Liliana Hanna, an Al-Karma employee, discussing the future of outreach program funding when the USAID grant ends. By supporting local and well-established NGOs, the outreach program has trained 1,080 Egyptian primary school teachers and conducted 132,895 training courses for mothers. To graduate from the Alam Simsim outreach program participants must successfully complete three courses on healthcare, child development, and child safety. To date, 43,560 mothers have graduated. "It is not our people who go and train 43,560 mothers, but we have local partners, people emerging from the same community as the participants, said Akram Habib, outreach director for Al-Karma Edutainment during his presentation. "We have more than 400 local facilitators. These facilitators represent Al-Karma efforts to ensure that their outreach program remains specific to its local community and sustainable within it. With over 80% of young children across both rural and urban Egypt tuning in to watch this fun and educational program, which prepares them for preschool, the program has reached unprecedented success. But sustainability comes at a price and right now it's unclear who will pay it.
