Muppets: Making Sense of Displacement

January 2, 2018

What do Muppets have to do with the Syrian refugee crisis? With a $100 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation, Sesame Workshop and the International Rescue Committee are developing what might be one of the largest early childhood interventions created in a humanitarian setting. Aimed at Syrian refugees and local children in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria, the project will leverage a new, regional version of Sesame Street to address the “toxic stress” experienced by displaced children in the region. The intervention echoes longstanding research that stress on the child in the first five years of life has repercussions for their long-term educational success, health, and overall wellbeing. 

Delivered through Sesame’s Muppets, the project’s free, educational content will focus on critical language, reading, math, and socioemotional skills critical with the refugee child’s perspective at heart. Distributed through television, the internet, and mobile phones, the show will reach Syrian children where they actually are—in neighborhoods. Tailored home visits from community health workers and local outreach will accompany the digital content, connecting caregivers to supportive skills and material—such as storybooks, developmentally appropriate games, and mobile-based resources—that encourage caregiver responsiveness, mental wellbeing, and resiliency. To learn more about the challenges and opportunities children face in in a digital world, explore this year’s The State of the World’s Children, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) flagship annual report.