Since 2017, Sesame Workshop and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) have worked together to give children affected by conflict and crisis in the Middle East the support they need to learn, grow and thrive. Ahlan Simsim— meaning “Welcome Sesame” in Arabic—is the single largest early childhood development initiative in the history of humanitarian response.
This transformational partnership combines direct services for children and caregivers in crisis- and conflict-affected areas with the power of engaging and effective educational media. Leveraging the IRC’s decades of experience working in crisis settings alongside Sesame Workshop’s expertise in mass media alongside the bold investments from the MacArthur Foundation, the LEGO Foundation, and numerous other donors, Ahlan Simsim has brought hope and joy to a generation of children across the MENA region.
Over the last 6 years, Ahlan Simsim has reached over 3.5 million children and caregivers with direct services and more than 29 million with the Ahlan Simsim TV Show, a locally-produced Arabic-language version of Sesame Street tailored for children affected by conflict and crisis. From classrooms to health clinics to mobile devices and TV, and with over 100 local and regional partners, Ahlan Simsim is reaching children where they are with holistic and supportive services at every nexus of their life and across all the stages of their earliest development, setting new standards for how we address children’s immediate needs and plan for their long-term development.
Ahlan Simsim, is an all-new Arabic-language TV show that combines classic characters like Elmo and the Cookie Monster with new characters such as “Jad,” who was forced to flee his home, “Basma,” who welcomed Jad when he arrived in his new community, and "Ameera", who lives with a disability. The Ahlan Simsim TV show has reached over 29 million children across the Middle East and North Africa since its launch.
The show features new Muppets who, like their audience, have been displaced or experienced conflict and hardship. The engaging Muppet characters act out stories that help marginalized children understand their emotions and experiences and teach them early learning fundamentals like counting and the alphabet. As a result, these children are better equipped to cope with the experiences of crisis, with fun and colorful characters that are then present across early support services like on worksheets in their preschool classrooms or on the walls of their health clinics.
The Ahlan Simsim initiative delivers a variety of in-person and remote programs and services that help children learn and develop. Our programs support children and the adults surrounding them. Programs for children provide safe, secure, joyful, and engaging opportunities to play and learn. These include flexible preschool programs that can reach children in-person and remotely and school readiness programs.Programs for families empower and support caregivers to provide nurturing responsive care for their children and cope with stress themselves. These range from parenting support sessions to integration of ECD guidance into primary healthcare services. These programs integrate educational media from the Ahlan Simsim TV Show into curricula, with the familiar Muppet characters supporting children throughout their early learning experiences.
As of September 2024, we have reached over 3.5 million children and caregivers.
Our approach has been driven by a commitment to collaboration. We aim to understand what resources are available within the existing systems supporting children, and the resulting needs and gaps that persist, and how we can bolster those local actors and national governments. However, we also know that the most marginalized children can get left out of government services such as formal education. As such, we’ve come up with adaptable programming to meet children where they are – by partnering with a wide gamut of ministries supporting young children such as ministries of health, education, and social development, we’ve extended our reach to those hard-to-reach children, with adaptable programs that have been embedded into systems through meaningful and long-lasting policy.
Meet Layali, her daughter Ayla and learn about our work with the Jordan Ministry of Health.
Currently, there are 240 million children around the world living with a disability. Often, these children are excluded from early childhood development and education programming. The IRC and Sesame Workshop have made it a core part of the Ahlan Simsim mission to provide all children with opportunities that build a foundation for lifelong learning.
For example, the TV show introduced Ameera, a character who uses a wheelchair or crutches due to a spinal cord injury, enabling children with disabilities to see themselves reflected on the show. We also train staff on disability inclusion, create accessible physical spaces, and provide activities and materials tailored to the needs and abilities of all children and have integrated disability inclusion into our educational and informational sessions with caregivers to raise parental and community awareness on how to support children with disabilities.
A commitment to research and learning is at the heart of the Ahlan Simsim initiative. As part of the last six years of implementation, New York University Global TIES for Children conducted three impact evaluations to provide insights on what works to improve children’s holistic development. These studies have nearly doubled the evidence base on early childhood development programs for children affected by crisis and displacement.
The research demonstrated that our 11-week remote early learning program delivered to Syrian refugee children in Lebanon produced child learning outcomes on par with those from a year of in-person preschool. This opens up new possibilities for reaching children with vital early education when or where they are unable to attend in person schools. We also found that the Ahlan Simsim TV show, shown in Jordanian kindergarten classrooms increased children’s social emotional skills. Learn more about our findings.
Complementing these impact evaluations, IRC teams also analyzed the cost of delivering ECD programs, highlighting the critical balance between cost efficiency, scale, and quality.
We are honored that the MacArthur Foundation selected Ahlan Simsim, a joint IRC and Sesame Workshop program, as the winner of its 2017 100&Change competition, a one-time $100 million grant to "make measurable progress toward solving a significant problem of our time." The LEGO Foundation awarded an additional $100 million to Sesame Workshop, BRAC and the IRC to bring the power of learning through play to children affected by the Syrian and Rohingya refugee crises. This funding launched the Play to Learn project, complementing MacArthur’s investment.
The International Rescue Committee and Sesame Workshop are working together to solve one of the greatest humanitarian crises of our time. Here's a look at the problem, by the numbers:
5 million
Conflict and displacement can negatively impact children’s development and threaten their long-term health and wellbeing.
1 in 10
Children who have experienced conflict and displacement are particularly vulnerable to the long-term effects that prolonged stress has on the developing brain.
of all registered Syrian refugees are under the age of five.
See how the IRC and Sesame Workshop help1 in 5
Early childhood education can help reverse the harmful impacts of early stress and trauma while restoring the possibility and hope for a brighter future.
We know now that the average length of displacement for a refugee is close to 20 years. And that's why it's a total tragedy that less than 2% of all humanitarian aid funding goes on education, even though half of the world's refugees are kids.David MilibandPresident and CEO, International Rescue Committee, interviewed on "60 Minutes"
