Takalani Sesame

Takalani Sesame is designed to use entertainment as a strategy for opening up learning and creativity to South African children. The curriculum, created by South African educators and child development experts, is designed especially for preschoolers - presenting messages that encourage children to develop positive self-esteem and self-image, to respect and appreciate others, to celebrate South Africa's diverse culture, and to develop basic skills with letters and numbers. The programme also hopes to encourage a lifelong love of learning.

With South Africa's population so severely affected by HIV/AIDS, Takalani Sesame aims to support the Department of Education's HIV/AIDS curriculum for school-age children. To develop the HIV/AIDS component of the initiative, the project’s partners worked closely with South African specialists in HIV and AIDS education, international organisations (UNAIDS), and the Takalani Sesame educational content team to develop a curriculum for young children that addresses 3 interrelated aspects of HIV and AIDS education: knowledge, attitudes, and skills. With this curriculum came the need for a strategy for promoting the humanisation of individuals with HIV and AIDS. What emerged was Kami, a female puppet who is HIV-positive - but asymptomatic (to counter the common misperception that all individuals with HIV were sickly and underweight). She represents a 5-year-old girl who was orphaned after her mother died of an AIDS-related illness. Kami is designed to provide an engaging, positive role model to Takalani Sesame’s audience.

With the launch of its fourth season in August 2007, producers embarked on an initiative to include all of the country’s 11 official languages, using the "applied language approach". This approach sees each episode of Takalani Sesame produced in 9 of the 11 languages. The broadcaster, SABC 1 and SABC 2, rotates the languages, dedicating one day a week to each. Language coaches were brought on to the set to smooth the language difficulties and prevent inadvertent mistakes. Prior to its fourth season, Takalani Sesame's producers had handled the variety of languages by interspersing each language throughout different segments, but, according to the producers, it was not resonating with children in the way they had hoped. Research showed that children would tune out a language they didn't understand, so it that it became counterproductive.

The new language strategy also extends to radio programming, with the series broadcasting in the languages relevant to each region. This has been punctuated by the extension of radio stations from 7 to 13 SABC radio stations broadcasting the programme. In the latest season of Takalani Sesame radio, which consists of 150 seven-minute shows, the action takes place directly on Takalani Sesame , where DJ Moshe has a new studio complete with a view of the street. Here he invites listeners and celebrity guests to come in and chat about things happening in their world. Each week, Moshe explores a different learning theme like "feelings", "games", or “animals.”

In August 2008, Takalani Sesame entered its fifth season. This series sees the introduction of 4 additional languages to its programme: Sesotho, Xitsonga, isiXhosa, and Afrikaans. Through a new character, the show also introduces concepts related to information technology such as the internet and email to children. Continuing on the literacy theme, the fifth season also features local poets, highlighting the power of words to get messages across.

Takalani Sesame also commissions outreach activities intended to drive the effective utilisation of the media broadcasts, deepen the educational impact of the series, and provide key resources to early childhood development programmes. Outreach consists of a series of integrated activities that focus on training and the development of educational material and the provision of equipment. The goal of these activities will equip educators, caregivers, and families with the knowledge, skills, and values that will enable them to use multiple media to foster the growth and development of the children in their care.

2015 update:

The Takalani Sesame Eastern Cape Outreach Project (TSECOP) was instituted in 2012 to produce and distribute 1,000 kits of educational materials within the Eastern Cape Province, where primary school enrollment is 44% and the under-five mortality rate is 93 per 1,000 live births. This expansion of Takalani Sesame, funded by the Mai Family Foundation, featuring the Takalani Sesame Muppets (e.g., Kami, Zuzu, Zikwe, Neno and Moshe), includes these materials designed by integrated early childhood development (IECD) specialists:

• a 2m x 2m story mat with pictures dealing with the themes or topics with which young children learn about the world around them (e.g., well-being, identity and belonging, language and communication, mathematics, problem-solving and knowledge, and an understanding of the world);
• 10 wordless picture books for language and concept development that focus upon mother tongue (home language) as well as other chosen languages;
• 11 math cards focusing on: activities for number and counting; patterns, space, and shape; measuring and; problem-solving;
• a set of finger Muppets; and
• a set of guidelines for using all the materials that adhere to the South African National Curriculum Framework for children from birth to five and the Curriculum and Policy statements (CAPS) for Grade R through the Foundation Phase.

These educational materials, based on learning through play and observation, are being distributed to civil society and government partners. In 2014, as part of this process, training was provided for early childhood caregivers and teachers on how to utilise the materials.

In March 2015, the outreach kits were augmented by incorporating LEGO blocks into the learning through play mats for an estimated total reach of 100,000 children and adults. Interactive Play Brainstorm sessions have been held in both South Africa and New York (United States). The play ideas that emerge will be incorporated into the materials designed to go with the LEGO Duplo Bricks distributed to the ECD centres as part of the second phase of the outreach project.

Takalani Sesame's ECD Hub is an interactive website designed to present up-to-date scholarship and educational materials and fun activities to support the development of 4 areas: literacy, numeracy, life skills, and social and emotional development. There is a focus here on the full potential of all children, irrespective of their differences (family background, culture, home language, gender, giftedness, learning difficulties, or disabilities). "We hope to become a vehicle for the exchange of ideas, best practices, educational resources between early education practitioners and other professionals."

Children, HIV/AIDS, Education.

In conducting background studies with local researchers in South Africa, the Takalani Sesame team found that HIV/AIDS confronted parents and caregivers with a host of challenges, including stigma directed at individuals with the disease; a lack of access to information; and the pain of illness, death, and dying. The studies also highlighted the limited knowledge children had about the disease and reinforced the contention that HIV and AIDS education was appropriate for Takalani Sesame's intended audience.