By Adity Choudhury
What does learning look like through the eyes of Chamki? Amid the panel discussions in the “Play to Learn” summit, this vivacious five-year-old muppet made everyone smile, adding childhood’s warmth in an otherwise sombre programme. The Meghalaya Early Childhood Development Mission (MECDM) and Meghalaya Health Systems Strengthening Project (MHSSP) in collaboration with Sesame Workshop India, organised this one-day summit in Shillong.
As people whispered amongst themselves, the question in most minds had to do with, ‘What’s play to learn?’ For the uninitiated, this refers to “the crucial role of play in young children’s overall development.”
Organised on Teachers’ Day, the curious little muppet asked the audience, “Did you know that teachers are not only in schools?”, adding, “Even pets can be teachers. For example, I learnt about yoga from my cat,” drawing chuckles from the crowd.
What may sound silly to some is the key to incorporate different learning modules in the “critical early years from conception to eight years of age.” Responding enthusiastically to Chamki were children who danced with her, sang songs and responded to her questions.
The other aspect of the summit focused on health. The people who will benefit from the mission are caregivers, children (0 to 8 years, including specially-abled children), pregnant women, and lactating mothers, including anganwadi centres that will be converted into ECD centres. Overall development will encompass children’s nutrition, cognitive development, socio-emotional learning, among others.
A HEALTHY CYCLE Inside the venue, colourful posters adorned the walls, while stalls offered an array of articles. One poster was about iron-rich foods, Vitamin C-rich foods, and the health benefits of yoga. The Sesame Workshop India Play Zone stall had pamphlets, booklets, and colored wheel badges. Another stall kept handmade baskets, dolls, bamboo products, and magazines, meant for children and adults.
Posters on the importance of breastfeeding, treating Diarrhoea at home, nutritional versus junk food, fighting anaemia in children, among others, looked at how the health of mothers impacts early childhood development.
The speakers touched upon the nuances of holistic growth. Welcoming each individual, the adorable muppet underscored the significance of meaningful education… one that becomes a foundation for success later in life.
Sampath Kumar, Principal Secretary, Government of Meghalaya, for instance, said, “Children are inherently inclined towards play, and it is imperative that we acknowledge the intrinsic role of play in their comprehensible development.”
Armed with a PowerPoint presentation, he urged the audience to reimagine “our approach to early childhood.” A life-cycle model further highlighted how all development outcomes are interconnected, right from pregnancy, childhood, adolescence, and then adulthood – the four pillars that will unlock the power of play for early childhood development.
The critical importance of early years shapes the way our brains and body work. Focusing on health, Kumar talked about anaemic mothers, poor antenatal care, and low birth rate, leading to stress and neglect – a vicious cycle that ultimately impacts the child negatively in terms of poor learning outcomes and a high rate of stunting.
SESAME INDIA
Credit goes to Sesame Workshop India; they’re working closely with the Department of Social Welfare to carry out their initiative “Learn Play Grow” in four districts of Meghalaya. Thanks to the support from SBI Foundation since 2020, it is benefiting 90,000 children in 3000 anganwadi centres through training anganwadi workers to provide child-centered, play/activity-based curricula, pedagogical processes, and effective techniques.
Shonali Khan, Managing Trustee, Sesame Workshop India Trust, said, “I acknowledge the innate potential of play as a platform for exploration, critical thinking, and innovation. Sesame Workshop has integrated play-pedagogy globally over the last 50 years and has proven impact. It rests upon us, as adults who are primary caregivers, to endorse and exemplify playful learning for holistic development of child.”
“So far, the EDC Mission has carried out block conventions in 10 blocks of the state, to sensitise community leaders and frontline workers, as well as government functionaries, about the importance of early childhood development, and to invite the full ownership and engagement of communities in rolling out ECD Mission,” she added.
They are one of the many branches of the Sesame Workshop that was originally called Children’s Television Workshop (CTW), an American NGO that was founded 55 years ago by (now) nonagenarian television writer, Joan Ganz Cooney and the experimental psychologist (L) Lloyd Newton Morisett Jr.
Their website gives an idea about their work – the mission states, “Helping kids grow smarter, stronger, and kinder.”
For those curious, the mission further reads, “You’ll find us in communities, navigating the narrow lanes of an urban slum with repurposed vegetable carts turned into mobile community viewing carts. You’ll see us in anganwadis, training teachers and sharing fun, impactful tools to help children with early numeracy and literacy and lessons on health and hygiene. You’ll also find us in homes, where we have trained parents on how to play with their children to enhance learning. All with a big dose of playfulness and fun.”
They have worked in the slums of Kolkata to teach children about hygiene; in Jharkhand, they focused on early financial literacy programme to empower communities “to manage resources better”; in Rajasthan and Haryana with high school dropout rates, they worked with children of migrant labourers using radio and mobile phones.
Sesame India’s application-based approach has earned the moniker, “Sesame Effect”, combining innovation with the power of media and memorable muppets. Storytelling, therefore, remains at the heart of their process.
Who doesn’t remember Sesame Street, which premiered in American television in 1969, using puppetry, live-action animation, and comedy to broach unique meaningful topics? It remains one of the longest-running educational series in the world. The Indian version of the show is called Galli Galli Sim Sim.
Was it, then, any surprise, that Chamki, the sister of Elmo, Grover, Jugaadu, Basha Bhaijaan, Col. Albert Pinto, among others, regaled the audience through this approach here in the city?
MEET GHAZAL JAVED
The voice of Chamki is Ghazal Javed, a Mumbai-based senior puppeteer, who has been with the NGO since 2005. A history graduate, she has branched out as a filmmaker and freelance writer. Storytelling is her forte.
Referring to the five-year-old muppet, who intently listened to the speakers, she said, “I am associated with Chamki for the last 18 years. Theatre has been a consistent friend since childhood. Auditions were held in Delhi where big names from the National School of Drama (NSD) and Shri Ram Centre for Performing Arts (SRCPA) were present. I got selected there. Since then, it’s been a long journey.”
Javed is the brand ambassador for women and girl child in India for Sesame Workshop India. As a speaker, she handles different panel discussions. Coupled with this, is her role as a line producer of Sesame internationally.
Notable among her works are the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh and the Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, line producing essentially all of their photographic work and videos. She terms this as the “sugar in my life”. The salt in her life is Bollywood where she makes feature films. For over a decade, she has worked with Meghna Gulzar and Vishal Bharadwaj.
Chamki is an extension of Javed. “Whenever Sesame has an indigenous production in any country, it’s research-based. We need to have different characters. That’s how Chamki came into the picture as a five-year-old school-going girl. The personality is what you invoke as an actor. She is my spirit. I am her, and she is me. Our journey together is rooted in my childhood.
In this context, how does she define her muppet? Long after the program ended, her words echoed, “Chamki is that street-smart child of India who studies in a government school and fearlessly breaks gender norms. She is strong and independent with a mind of her own. She loves learning despite being a girl child. And, she is not afraid to become anything she wants to become. At heart, she is a dreamer… a lot like little Ghazal. With a little support, she goes, zooooommmm!”
Don’t we all want to see the future of society fly high? This remains to be seen.