Sesame Street officially has a new friend on the block, and she's got a big role to take on: representing the 240 million children with disabilities around the world and bringing visibility to globally displaced children.
Ameera, 8, is a neon-green, pony-tailed muppet monster designed as part of Sesame Workshop's initiative to provide early childhood education to children affected by global crises around the world. She will be debuted on Sesame Street's Middle Eastern and North African local show, Ahlan Simsim (“Welcome Sesame”).
Much like her Sesame predecessors, Ameera has a diverse set of interests — she loves science and basketball, knows how to make everyone around her laugh, and happens to be the user of a bright purple wheelchair and trusty pair of forearm crutches. She sometimes struggles to include her friends in playtime, but loves to teach younger kids new things and share her passion for science with them. Ameera is cheerful, passionate, and a potential older role model for younger muppets and children watching, all while providing a lesson about inclusion and kindness to everyone.
While not a refugee herself, Ameera will help tell the stories of displaced children and her fellow muppet friends, like Noor and Aziz from Bangladesh. According to UNICEF estimates, more than 33 million children have been displaced around the world — as of 2020, more than 11 million of those children are refugees, and that number is certainly growing with new international conflicts.
To ensure that all of these overlapping experiences were represented with care, Ameera was designed with help from a team of external inclusion and disability experts, including occupational therapists, disability technical experts, inclusive early education specialists, and people with disabilities themselves, based in both the Middle East and in the U.S. The group helped develop a story accurate to the identity, movements, and devices used by actual children with disabilities. "We wanted to make sure that we created a character based on the advice and guidance of our advisors, as well as a character that kids would be excited to be friends with, to learn and destigmatize that you can be friends with those who are different from you," said Estee Bardanashvili, supervising producer and senior director.
Because Ameera is so active in sports and play, the team wanted to pay careful attention to how an actual 8-year-old with a similar spinal cord injury as Ameera would navigate their own mobility. "How would a child who's of the same age, with the same abilities as she does, be able to play? What are some of the mannerisms and movements? How far would she stretch her arms, for example? Or what would be the best way of her playing with her friends when she is moving around on her crutches? They really guided us to all of those details," Bardanashvili explained. The team's inclusion, diversity, and disability advisor was also on site to guide the actors puppeteering Ameera's monster muppet.
Ameera's English voice actor for the animated videos, Ashley Glicken, has close ties to Ameera's story: She, too, is a young woman with disabilities who uses mobility devices. "She can really relate to what Ameera's experiences are, and she can put her own confidence and her own abilities into the voice," Bardanashvili said of Glicken's contributions to Ameera's writing, as well.
And even the new muppet's puppeteer supplied some personal touches. Leen Sarsak is a young mother based in Amman, Jordan, and a first-time puppeteer. She relied on her family's own experiences raising children in a region surrounded by and imbued with a history of conflict, as well as observations while parenting her own children, to embody the compassion and physical reactions of Ameera on screen.
Ameera is intended to bridge the gaps that exist in providing early education to children affected by global crises. In scenes designed to replicate these children's unique living experiences, she'll help tell their stories and guide their lessons. In many ways, she represents the complex lives of children around the world, making her both a role model for many and a defiant example of breaking stereotypes and exposing many to diverse experiences.
"At a time when more children than ever before are affected by conflict and displacement, Ameera also highlights the urgent need for creative and flexible approaches to delivering playful learning and early education to communities affected by crisis,” Sherrie Westin, president of Sesame Workshop, wrote in Ameera's announcement.
Alongside her premiere on Ahlan Simsim, Ameera will have a feature spot in upcoming digital “Watch, Play, Learn” videos for children 3-8 years old. The series is part of Sesame Workshop's Learning Through Play initiative and the Play to Learn humanitarian program, designed to help families of the Rohingya and Syrian refugee crises — the latter focuses on providing early education to families displaced by conflict and disaster. Play to Learn is in partnership with humanitarian nonprofits BRAC and the International Rescue Committee (IRC), as well as New York University’s Global TIES for Children research center. Ameera was launched through the IRC and Sesame Workshop's Ahlan Simsim humanitarian program of the same name, which reaches children in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, and was funded with support by the MacArthur Foundation.
In an interview with Fast Company, Scott Cameron, executive producer of international social impact at Sesame Workshop, said the team was even working on translating Ameera and other's stories into the Ukrainian language to address the communities currently displaced by the Russian invasion.
Ameera's story will teach children around the world about the social-emotional skills of being kind to yourself and others, as well as the importance of representation for girls in STEM, displaced people around the world, and mobility device users. She'll be joined by Ahlan Simsim favorites and Sesame Street icons Elmo, Grover, and Cookie Monster, who will learn alongside her.
"We want to normalize play and friendship between children with different abilities. Ameera is older than our other characters. She is a girl, she is knowledgable, she is playful, she is sporty. We want her to be a character that a lot of children around the world see and want to be her friend. They can confide in her and learn from her," Bardanashvili said. "We really hope that both kids and parents embrace her and normalize that friendship."
Watch more of Ameera on the Sesame International Social Impact YouTube channel, or tune into season 5 of Ahlan Simsim, which premieres in the Middle East and North Africa at the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan (April 1).
UPDATE: Mar. 30, 2022, 2:21 p.m. EDT This piece was updated with clarifying information about Ahlan Simsim and Ameera's role.
