Big Bird and friends have been teaching children for more than 50 years in 150 countries and in 70 languages, while, at the same time, paving the way for educators to see media as an effective teaching tool. Since 2018, Sesame Workshop and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) have implemented an innovative multi-sectoral initiative that again has broken new ground, this time proving that remote models can be highly effective in teaching young children living in crisis-affected communities. Studies show the results of these efforts to be nothing short of remarkable.

Conflict and crisis around the world have left nearly 43 million children displaced from their homes, and only 31 percent have access to pre-primary education.[i] To proactively address the disruption that occurs for young children who have been forcibly displaced in early childhood when support for brain development is most crucial, Sesame Workshop and IRC developed Ahlan Simsim (“Welcome Sesame” in Arabic), the largest early childhood intervention in the history of humanitarian response.

In Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, Ahlan Simsim has reached more than 1.5 million children and caregivers through direct services and more than 23 million children across the Middle East and North Africa, including 57 percent of displaced Syrians in Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq, through an award-winning, locally produced Arabic language TV series of the same name. The MacArthur Foundation and the LEGO Foundation provide funding for Ahlan Simsim in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, while USAID provides funding for an extension of the program in Iraq.

New York University’s international research center Global TIES for Children recently published the results of a group of studies on the program that focused on measuring its impacts in remote learning environments. One of the studies evaluated an 11-week Remote Early Learning Program (RELP) offered to Syrian and Lebanese caregivers who have children ages 5-6 and are living in hard-to-access areas of Lebanon where in-person learning was not available. The RELP sessions consisted of 180 activities, 63 of which included multimedia content produced as part of the Ahlan Simsim initiative through videos, storybooks, and songs. Teachers guided caregivers to implement key activities at home with their children, delivering early childhood educational content over WhatsApp. Parents and children met in group calls with the teachers two-to-three times a week for 11 weeks.

A second study demonstrated the impacts that watching the Ahlan Simsim television program had on improving children’s emotional development, including their ability to identify strategies for regulating their own emotions.

A third study evaluated a program that delivered support and early childhood development messages to caregivers via audio-only phone calls.

Results of the studies revealed that the RELP program had significant impacts on all six child outcomes measured for the intervention: overall child development, emerging literacy, emerging numeracy, motor skills, social emotional skills, and child play. In addition, the third study revealed that the audio-only caregiver support program notably reduced caregivers’ depression symptoms.

Key findings include:

• A remote preschool program with educational media integrated into the curriculum had substantial positive impacts on young children.
• Gains in literacy and numeracy from the remote preschool program were comparable to those seen in global studies of full-year, in-person preschools.
• The educational television program Ahlan Simsim boosted children’s emotional development.
• The remote ECD parenting program improved caregiver depression, with important implications for supporting caregiver mental health.

Rebecca Levy, Special Advisor for Advancing Protection and Care of Children in Adversity, witnessed firsthand the progress made through the program when she visited the region earlier this year, stating, “It was a privilege to learn more about how we can support families and communities in providing nurturing, protective care, and opportunities for early learning for young children. You can see and feel the joy that Ahlan Simsim brings to the children as their faces light up. Thanks to the robust research agenda of Sesame and IRC, we now also know that this media content, along with caregiver support and education, actually improves early-childhood development outcomes, reinforcing the benefit and importance of investing in children early.”

The war in Syria has created many challenges for children and their families, but it has not diminished their desire to learn – neither has the scarcity of electricity in this darkened corner of the world. Parents and caregivers go to great lengths to charge their cellphones and tablets in order to participate in remote learning. They understand that the lack of in-person learning opportunities for young children at a critical stage of their development can have far-reaching impacts.

Perhaps Elmo said it best: “If you keep practicing, you can do anything.”

It is crucial to recognize the potential in these results to help scale, build, and adapt additional remote learning programs. Much work remains, but Sesame Workshop and IRC have put the building blocks in place to shape a healthy future for millions of children who otherwise might be left behind.

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[i] https://sesameworkshop.org/about-us/press-room/new-research-shows-substantial-impact-on-childrens-learning-from-groundbreaking-ahlan-simsim-initiative-combining-educational-media-and-early-childhood-services/