Entertainment Summit West - Los Angeles

Entertainment Summit West - Gary E. Knell Transcript

Gary E. Knell, President & CEO Sesame Workshop

Thank you very much everyone for the privilege of being here today and inviting Sesame Workshop to really start off these proceedings. I’m really pleased to take part in this important summit, aimed to try to explore ways in which we can utilize and harness the energy of this amazing industry to face some of these tough issues that we have here at home and abroad. Sonny and David Andrews and Todd and other leaders in this town are to be commended for their work, on trying to do exactly that.

Oprah Winfrey said recently, we caught a quote from her, which stuck out, “challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don't fight them. Just find a different way to stand.” Our discussions here today are our way of trying to discover that new way to stand. Sesame Workshop was formed 35 years ago and is continuing, to this day, to search for new ways to stand when it comes to educating children. Our mission is to use media to help children reach their highest potential.

35 years ago, and 97 Emmys later, more than any show in the history of television, (we out-did Wide World of Sports a couple of years ago), our founders discovered a new way to utilize the power of TV, not only to entertain but to educate. Sesame Street, you may not know, is now actually the longest street in the world, going over to 120 countries around the world. That street has extended into Mexico and to China, Russia, Germany, where we are applying all forms of media to best address the local needs of children in those countries. It's an undertaking that has charged us with the job, to provide children with basic lessons, whether it's teaching them letters and numbers or also, social and emotional skills to aid children at a very early age in overcoming life's obstacles. We're not strangers, either, to addressing tough issues. To meet these challenges, in each of our international Sesame Street adaptations, we incorporate lessons that tackle some of these tough issues that affect children in their particular country or region, in an age-appropriate manner. They're developed with the help of local producers, local writers, local child development experts, educators and researchers, to create series that have engaging animation and live action and Muppet segments that, through laughter and music, also happen to reflect local culture and educational needs. Take a look now at a few examples of how we're using media to incorporate lessons of respect and understanding into some of our international co-productions. Please roll the tape.

(VIDEO CLIP)

That's just a small sampling. Sesame Workshop is using the power of television to promote respect and understanding in areas of ethnic conflict around the world. And next month, we're heading to Kosovo at the invitation of the U.N. Development Program and UNICEF to launch program with Serb and Albanian children and new Muppets, which will hopefully create peace around the world. Last year, we actually gave a talk about Muppet diplomacy. So we're trying to get that into tonight's debate but we'll see what happens.

A year ago in Israel, Palestine and Jordan, a new program got launched called Sesame Stories. And the centerpiece of each episode of that program is chosen for its ability to illuminate at its core, themes of tolerance and self-empowerment and empathy. The impact that your actions can have on others, which, after all, are the tenants of conflict resolution, promoting self-esteem in the West Bank in Gaza for Palestinian children and many families in that part of the world are, believe it or not, the average family is suffering from boredom. In fact, there's very low employment. They can't move around very often. They can't visit their families. Can't travel to other places. So, what are they doing? They're sitting inside, watching television. What are they watching? A lot of images that we all know too well are promoting wrong values and very negative media images invading living rooms across that part of the world. This gives an ability to begin to change young minds and through them, we hope their parents, as well.

We're using the power of media to strengthen girls' education, as you saw, with little Coca in Egypt, in a country where 60 percent of the women are illiterate. And we saw, on the tape , where Coca in Egypt becomes a role model with big career aspirations. She wants to be all that she can be. She wants to be a doctor or an astronaut, a teacher, to name a few of her ambitions. She encourages children to aspire to a productive future.

Producing or writing for a television series, we do know, is no easy feat. And it gets to be an even bigger challenge when you're dealing in a country with an infrastructure, with very limited access to media. We went into Afghanistan last year and came across this challenge.in a country where televisions were banned and girls had been systematically eliminated from schools and were unable to attend them at all for years and years. After the Taliban, very few families in Afghanistan had access to television. And many still even lacked electricity in their homes. We knew that we could not make an impact simply by just airing a television series. So with the help of our partners, which includes the RAND Corporation here in Santa Monica, the government of Quatar and others, we found a new way to reach out to those kids, by being able to distribute kits to them in schools. The outreach kits included a teacher handbook, even a chalkboard and chalk to go along with it and posters and school supplies.

The outreach kits were distributed earlier this year to schools and community centers and taken to the rural areas in mobile cinema trucks, which now are going around the country. When the word spread, demand, has grown. And in fact, we are now, putting the show out and distributing it through, state run orphanages. There's a wonderful report of, and pictures from, an orphanage in Afghanistan watching our Egyptian program. We were able to dub it and put it into the local language, give the characters new names, put on new original Afghan music, and incorporate in content lessons around gender equity, cultural awareness, and basic skills.
Our experience in working in all forms of media has taught us that finding the right medium to deliver messages is sometimes as important as the message itself. It's not just the approach but also the messenger we know that makes the difference. It's often that children or their caregivers, their parents find role models in people who are prominent, after all, in the media. Sesame Street and its adaptations have featured The Muppets, modeling positive behaviors for children, or celebrities, in fact, for their parents. We hope that they will want to emulate some of those things. That's why last year, in the U.S. version, we had Norah Jones doing a piece on the letter Y, singing, of course, her famous song, being stood up by the letter Y, “ Don't Know Why Y Didn't Come”.

And as you saw, a few moments ago, Kami met one of her role models, a person she considers a hero, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. When Sesame Street and Sesame Workshop began exploring the needs of children in South Africa for the curriculum of Takalani Sesame, it was apparent that nowhere is HIV/AIDS more devastating to children than in sub Saharan Africa. You've all heard some of these statistics but they're worth repeating again. That just two years ago, 800,000 children, under the age of 15, became HIV-positive. By 2010, estimates of the number of children who have, will have lost at least one parent to HIV/AIDS, are a staggering 20 million. They are losing teachers. They are losing parents. Children are raising children. And we realize that kids, who are touched by this disease, need their own type of hero…one that could provide them with skills, resilience, and be someone, resiliency, and someone that they could relate to. Building on the shows' contributions in bringing South Africa's emergence from years of Apartheid forward, in basic education and literacy and numeracy, and in teaching life skills to children, we along with our parents at the South African Broadcasting Corporation and the Department of Education in USAID decided to use the show as a vehicle to address stigma and the discrimination associated with HIV and AIDS.

Kami has shown, in her friendly and disarming way, that we can use media to provide information in a positive way that motivates people. She has contributed to mainstreaming HIV/AIDS education messaging. Kami is reaching out to young children, their parents, their caregivers and educators by fostering respect in caring for people who are infected and/or affected by this disease. She is helping children build self-esteem and develop coping mechanisms for this affliction and empathy from their schoolmates, and is making a big dent in de-stigmatizing the disease in South Africa. In recognition of the impact that Kami has made, UNICEF actually appointed Kami as a champion for children in November of last year. In this role, she is helping to raise awareness of the issue worldwide. The messages that Kami brings to the children of South Africa are delivered using several forms of media in order to reach the widest possible audience. She regularly appears on the TV show. She is also on Takalani Sesame Radio Programs with a show called Story Time With Kami.
Since a large number of South Africans do not own televisions, Takalani radio programs are just as vital as the TV series. Our commitment to aiding South African children has led us into a new collaboration with the Freeplay Foundation, which creates these wind-up radios, which don't require batteries. They're hand-cranked radios, which are being distributed in rural areas, so that children have access to the music, to laughing and learning with Kami and all of her friends on Takalani have to offer. Regardless of income or access to electricity or even batteries.

And on December 1st, World AIDS Day, Kami will be a voice that helps encourage conversations about HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa, where the national call to action campaign called Talk To Me. And we will also have a primetime special on SABC entitled How To Talk To Your Children About HIV and AIDS. Through these means, we commit ourselves to breaking the cycle of silence around HIV and AIDS. We will promote communication between caregivers and children. We will increase knowledge to help ease the fear, discrimination, and stigma about the disease. And we will help children cope with and protect themselves against HIV. We hope this campaign will contribute and create, in effect, a domino effect of communication and contribute to an atmosphere of openness and acceptance, which will then result in empowering experiences that can, indeed, change lives.
I'd like to close with a crisis and an issue, a critical issue, I think, that's a bit closer to home. Our nation's obesity crisis. We recently launched a multimedia initiative we call Healthy Habits For Life, that will empower preschoolers, caregivers, and parents with knowledge that will contribute to the health of the whole child. We will incorporate messages for families in Sesame Street's upcoming 36th season, about exercise, healthy eating, and body awareness into every new episode. Happy Healthy Monsters will be the title of several new books, home videos, and interactive components, including our website, SESAMESTREET.COM. Information will also be provided through PSAs with the ad council, magazines like Parenting, and outreach kits. With the power of media, we will encourage both children and parents to adopt healthy eating and exercise habits and develop positive self-images. Even the Cookie Monster will rap about health and food. The industry that's represented in this room is actually the largest group of teachers in the world. Whether you wish to admit it or not, people who experience your content at home take away all kinds of lasting images, positive or negative, which often stay with them for days, weeks, months, and, indeed, sometimes, a lifetime. The enormity of our global challenges, in respect for religions and cultures, in health, in resolving conflicts peacefully, in building educated societies require us to harness this huge power for positive means.

The question has never been, does television teach? The question is, what does it teach? That answer, ladies and gentlemen, to a large extent exists in this town and indeed, in this room. There is no secret why Kami came to visit L.A. today to be with you all here. Gandhi once said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” The workshop is doing its part, trying to be a change agent by empowering the next generation with our content. I sincerely hope that the discussions here today will help transform us toward joining, in common cause, toward learning and seeing and becoming the change we wish to see in the world. Thank you very much.

Back to top