New Versions of Elmo and Big Bird on Air in Sesame Street for Syrian Refugees

The 50-year-old American television show “Sesame Street” has begun airing a new version of its series, especially produced for displaced Syrian refugees.

Around 70 percent of Syrian residents have been forced from their homes since 2011, when the Syrian conflict started, and they’re the largest displaced population in the world: out of the 11 million and more who have fled to other parts of the nation or to countries across the borders, only about 150,000 permanently resettled.

The new project, called “Ahlan Simsim” – or “Welcome Sesame” – is aimed at rethinking humanitarian aid. Sherrie Westin, Sesame Workshop’s president of social impact and philanthropy, explains than less than two percent of humanitarian aid worldwide is targeted at education, adding, “and just a tiny fraction of that goes to early education … We’re talking about a generation-scale intervention.”

“We want this project to be a model for humanitarian response not just in the Middle East, but for refugee children wherever they may be,” she adds. Sesame estimates that the project will reach as many as nine million children, expected to be the largest early-childhood intervention in humanitarian response history.