LAHORE: Sharing international cultural experience, a six-member team of Sesame Street, an American children television serial, is currently in Lahore to conduct a five-day workshop at the Pakistan Children Television.

PC TV is a project of USAID and the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop.

It is something big and of great value that such high-level international activity in the field of puppetry is part of the city’s cultural map.

Some veterans of Sesame Street from various places of the world including South Africa are also here to conduct the workshop.

The workshop aims at improving skills of individuals working with PC TV in different departments such as direction, writing and puppetry.

It will help the individuals participating in the workshop because PC TV’s ultimate aim is to reach out to the children of Pakistan to impart high-quality education.

The workshop is also a prelude to the season-2 of PC TV programmes commencing in June this year. Every season is spread over four-month programming.

Sadaf Sajwani, assistant director of the Pakistan Global Education Sesame Street, told Dawn that most of the concepts of the new season would be based on Nature. She said this was something great that some of the Sesame Street members conducting the workshop had a great deal of experience as they joined the Street back in 1969, the inception year of the Sesame Street series.

Faizan Pirzada said the first episode of the Pakistan Children Television’s programme “Sim Sim Hamara”, an educational and capacity-building TV series for children, was aired on Dec 10 at national TV. “The PC TV series is an early education resource for a large number of children who lack access to formal education opportunities.”

He said “Sim Sim Hamara” was the Pakistani adaptation of the engaging programme “Sesame Street”, created by the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop in collaboration with the Sesame Workshop, New York, and funded by USAID.

The Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop will create 130 episodes of “Sim Sim Hamra” broadcast on PTV Home. Seventy-eight of these episodes will be produced in Urdu and 52 in national languages.

Along with language and numeracy skills, this educational show promotes basic life skills, healthy habits, mutual respect and love for learning. The show’s locally-developed puppet stars include Rani, a six-year old schoolgirl with a keen interest in natural sciences and a love of reading, Munna, a five-year old boy with big dreams and a flair for mathematics and numbers, Baily, a fluffy, hardworking donkey who aspires to be a pop star, Baji, a colourful, spirited woman with a passion for food, family, fun and tradition, and Haseen-o-Jameel, a crocodile who has a wonderful way with words, rhymes and songs.

Sesame Street is an American children’s television series created by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett. The programme is known for its educational content, and creativity communicated through the use of Jim Henson’s Muppets, animation, short films, humour and cultural references.