Iftah Ya Simsim back on air after 25 years

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Iftah Ya Simsim back on air after 25 years
The main characters of the show: No'man, Shams, Melsoon and Gargur are back in a much updated and modernised form.

Abu Dhabi - Aimed at children between four and six years old, the new show includes 28 new original songs and it will allow youngsters to identify and pronounce all 28 letters of the Arabic alphabets.

by

Silvia Radan

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Published: Sat 5 Sep 2015, 12:00 AM

Last updated: Sat 5 Sep 2015, 12:11 PM

What can be a better start to the weekend for kids than to have their favourite TV show back on air. Much-loved children's TV show Iftah Ya Simsim, the Arabic version of Sesame Street, resurfaced after a 25-year hiatus this weekend and is being broadcast on nine national and private TV channels across the Gulf countries.
The main characters - No'man, Shams, Melsoon and Gargur - are back in the show with a much updated and modernised version of the show after nearly five years of work that brought together the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec), Mubadala, the GCC organisations Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States and the Joint Program Production Institute, US-based Sesame Workshop, a nonprofit educational organisation behind the Sesame Street, twofour54 and Bidaya Media, producer of the show.
Aimed at children between four and six years old, the new show includes 28 new original songs and it will allow youngsters to identify and pronounce all 28 letters of the Arabic alphabets.
According to Dr Amal Al Qubaisi, Director-General of Adec, the TV show is a great learning opportunity for Arab youngsters.
"The first few years in a child's life are the most important in setting the basics of education and social behaviour," she pointed out.
"The programme needs to simulate the minds of our children as per education objectives and basic life skills by motivating them to develop their alphabet literacy, language skills, mathematics, geometric shapes and classifications, while enhancing their problem solving and social skills through showcasing children or people in real-life situations," stressed Al Qubaisi.
"When Sesame Street debuted in 1969, our goal was to help better prepare children for school in the US. The founders never dreamed that the television show they created would stretch far and wide to become the longest street in the world," said Steve Youngwood, chief operation officer of Sesame Workshop.
Today, kids in Germany, India, Brazil and China have embraced their very own version of Sesame Street with its own name, language, curriculum and even Muppets, but Iftah Ya Simsim was one of the first to pave the way for this extraordinary global street that now reaches millions of children in 150 countries," he added.
Idea behind the show
Indeed, the first production of Iftah Ya Simsim, which means Open Sesame in Arabic, aired throughout the region in 1980s. The idea to re-make the programme was conceived in 2010. Cooperation between Zayed University and the King Saud University allowed for conducting research in the UAE and KSA with over 400 children.
The research found that out of 11 million children under the age of 14 and 4.3 million preschoolers, which the show aims to reach, 30 per cent are overweight or obese.
This not only jeopardises the health and well-being of the Gulf citizens, but the key potential of a healthy and productive work force. Therefore, the first series of Sesame Street, which includes 28 episodes, focuses on early Arabic literacy, but also on health education awareness.
Arabic language, as well as cultural and traditional values are also part of the main educational targets of Iftah Ya Simsim.
"Iftah Ya Simsim was an influential show in the1980s...At a time when our children are accessing more non-Arab content and the use of our language is declining, I am truly excited about the potential for this programme to educate and unite a new generation of Arabs in our culture," said Noura Al Kaabi, CEO of twofour54.
silvia@khaleejtimes.com


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