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Posted by Sherrie Thai of Shaire Productions.

Do you remember watching Sesame Street as a kid? Or are still enjoying it with the little ones in your life? How did it impact you?

“The World According to Sesame Street” is a PBS documentary focusing on how Sesame Street puppetry has filtered through countries ravished by poverty and violence, giving hope, a sense of mutual respect, literacy, and education to children who need it most.

As a commercial brand, the show has been able to extend from a US-based show (1968) to a global phenomenon, hitting 120 countries, but giving the respective countries the freedom to develop their own characters, stories, and a context to address the needs of their community.

On a social level, the children are given the education to topics where they need it the most. In South Africa, the reality of most children’s lives are touched by AIDS/HIV. They made a character with HIV, who taught the audience about death and misconceptions about the disease–all through entertainment, song, and puppets. Bangladesh’s Sesame Street curriculum dealt more with education–addressing poor children, who had to work and were denied an education. One interviewer mentioned ‘there is not enough time to talk, but must take action.’ Changing the world through their art–inspirational.