Sesame Street's Newest Muppets for Rohingya Children

The Rohingya is a stateless ethnic group from Myanmar. They are persecuted by the Myanmar Government as the government considers them to be illegal foreigners from Bangladesh. However, Rohingya claimed to be descendants of Arab traders who had settled in Rakhine in around 7th century. The conflict grew worse in 2019 and around 750 000 Rohingya fled from Myanmar to other ASEAN countries such as Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia; more than half are children. These children suffered emotional trauma and led a very impoverished life in the refugee camp. Sesame Street attempts to help these children with some new initiatives, but more assistance from international organization will be needed to ensure that these children will have a future.  

Working together with several other charity foundations, Sesame Street, an educational TV series from the US, created a special TV program with two new Rohingya muppets, Noor and Aziz, for the Rohingya children. Noor and Aziz are twins and share many similarities with the Rohingya children, allowing the children to identify themselves with and thus learning from the muppets. They have similar features, speak Rohingya’s native language and share similar backgrounds with them. For example, Aziz is steeped in the Rohingya tradition of storytelling and Noor is afraid of loud noises as they reminded her of gunfire, much like many Rohingya children. The cartoon shows how Noor and Aziz handled their trauma and deal with their emotions, thus allowing the Rohingya children to apply those solutions in their own life too. Sesame Street hopes that this would provide psychological and emotional support for them. 

Another idea featured in the show is gender equality. Aziz helps with household chores and Noor loves to study. This might be unusual in a Rohingya household as girls usually do the house chores, received very little education, and are married off at quite a young age. With Noor as an example, Rohingya girls emulate her and see that there's nothing wrong in getting an education and having high dreams. Sesame Street hopes to show Rohingya children that both genders are equal in every aspect of life and deserves to be regarded as such.

However, these empowerment and modernization of children, could put the children, especially girls, at risk. Some of the ideas taught by Sesame Street, like gender equality, might go against the norms of a traditional Rohingya community. This might cause conflicts and estrangement from their family and community. There have been cases of violence towards young adults for breaking a traditional norm. If the Rohingya finds Sesame Street as a threat to their customs, the programme might be banned among them. The younger generation won't learn the same ideas the older generation did. In this way, many wouldn't be able to improve themselves in certain aspects due to the limitations put on them by the customs of the community. 

Not only do children need to be taught to be open minded, I think adults in the community need to be educated to be open minded too. I think that this is where social welfare organizations can step in. NGOs like Gugah Nurani Indonesia and SHINE provide seminars and workshops for parents. These organizations usually teach both children and adults new skills and ideas of the 21st century. My mom and her team are invited by Gugah Nurani Indonesia to teach teachers on how to teach story writing and illustration to children and the importance of creativity to both Indonesian children and parents. She will also help out in their parent seminar on using technology in a productive way. I used to participate in SHINE and the organization has taught new skills such as making organic soaps to both parents and children. Through these kinds of social welfare organizations parents in poverty can broaden their minds and improve their living standards. 

In my opinion, Sesame Street's Rohingya programme is very beneficial to the Rohingya children. They provide not only entertainment and fun, but also attempts to educate and empower them. However, it can also be a double-edged sword as the modernization could bring more harm than good. If all these charity foundations work together, these displaced children will be able to have a better quality of life and brighter future.