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Sesame Workshop characters like Elmo have new co-stars. Image: AFP / LEON NEAL
Noor and Aziz, key figures in a new apprenticeship program for refugee children in camps in southern Bangladesh, serve as a model of education for Rohingya children.
Noor and Aziz, two new Rohingya muppets
Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind the “Sesame Street” series, unveiled two new characters to its cast on Thursday. Six-year-old Rohingya twins, Noor and Aziz, will now appear alongside other “muppets” like Elmo on video shows broadcast in refugee camps.
These two new puppets will tackle math, science and other programs taught directly to children in camps.
“They will speak Rohingya,” reported the New York Times, “the language of a group of people that the Myanmar authorities have refused to recognize as a legitimate ethnicity.”
Rohingya puppets representing children
This work, carried out by Sesame Workshop, which helps to ensure diversity in the television series, aims to give a positive image to these children by representing them in a program designed for them.
They are designed to be familiar to them, with very specific characteristics: the young woman, Noor, loves to learn and is very confident, while her brother, Aziz, is dedicated to household chores and is passionate about stories . But they are always placed at the same level.
Critical living and education conditions
The Rohingya are a stateless ethnic group and are primarily from Myanmar and Bangladesh. Since 2016, nearly a million Rohingya have migrated to Bangladesh to flee the ethnic massacre and are taking refuge in camps in the Cox’s Bazaar region of southern Bangladesh.
The children in these camps are numerous and “are among the most marginalized children in the world,” Sherrie Westin, president of social impact for Sesame Workshop, told The New York Times.
That is why the program has expanded into a partnership with the Lego Foundation, the International Rescue Committee and Brac (a charity founded in Bangladesh) to educate, inspire and represent these children. DC
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