Sesame Street to introduce HIV-positive Muppet NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sesame Street will soon introduce its first HIV-positive Muppet character to children of South Africa, where one in nine people have the virus that can lead to AIDS. The upbeat female Muppet will join "Takalani Sesame" on September 30 for its third season on the South African Broadcasting Corporation. The character -- which has yet to have a name or final colour or form -- will travel to many if not all of the eight other nations that air versions of the educational children's show that began in the United States in 1969, said Joel Schneider, vice president and senior adviser to the Sesame Street Workshop. Schneider said talks are under way to introduce an HIV-positive character to U.S. viewers. Schneider announced the new character this week at the 14th International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, Spain, where he spoke by telephone on Thursday. "This character will be fully a part of the community," Schneider said. "She will have high self-esteem. Women are often stigmatised about HIV and we are providing a good role model as to how to deal with one's situation and how to interact with the community." The program is aimed at children from 3 to 7 and the messages delivered by the new character will be "appropriate," said Schneider, meaning that there will be no explicit mention of sex. "Not every show will deal explicitly with HIV/AIDS," Schneider said. "We want to show that here is an HIV-positive member of our community who you can touch and interact with. "We will be very careful to fashion our messages so they are appropriate to the age group. What do I do when I cut my finger? What do I do when you cut your finger? That sort of thing." "Takalani Sesame" will be the second children's show in South Africa to have an HIV-positive character. But it is believed to be the first among shows designed for preschoolers, said Beatrice Chow, spokeswoman for the Sesame Street Workshop in New York. In some parts of South Africa, 40 percent of women of child-bearing age are infected with HIV, and in 2000, about 40 percent of adult deaths in South Africa were attributed to AIDS, according to the U.S. State Department.
Pretty ridiculous... What exactly is the purpose here...to teach "tolerance"? Why on earth would a 3 year old need to learn about HIV/AIDS; especially since they are FAR too young to understand the most common causes of contracting the disease.
If the child lives in Africa, there's a very good chance a family member is infected with the disease. Possibly even the child, since the lack of adequate healthcare leads to most mothers passing it on to their children. There are ways to pass on AIDS besides sex.
I actually never mentioned sex. I was wondering why its even necessary to introduce it to little children if you aren't going to be able to explain it completely and realistically? Of course there are other ways to contract HIV. But the leading causes of contracting it are through direct blood contact via shared drug needles, tattoo needles, piercings, etc. and of course, sexual contact. These aren't exactly things that 3-4 year old children need to learn on Sesame Street...
Because the children there are going through AIDS-induced horrors that we can't even fathom. This excerpted from today's issue of the San Francisco Chronicle: Up to 800,000 children in South Africa have lost both their parents or their sole known parent --usually their mother -- to AIDS. By 2005, that figure is expected to reach 1 million, climbing as high as 3 million by 2010. Social workers are struggling to keep up with the wave of young victims. "Some orphans continue to go to school even after their parents die, which means we can keep track of them and provide them with assistance," said Minnie Themba, a community worker and AIDS counselor in Vosloorus township, where the Radebes live. "Many others drop out, and when they do, they disappear." Themba says relatives are often reluctant to take in the children of AIDS victims because of the stigma attached to the disease, even in a country where 20 percent of all adults are infected with HIV. "They have no one to take care of them," she said. "This means they get no schooling, basic nutrition or hygiene." Government officials concede that they are overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem. As the adult population drops, some fear a "Mad Max"-style future with teenage gangs roaming the streets in hard-hit cities. The country's richest province, Gauteng, plans to set aside $30 million to provide for orphans, to be used as a $45-per-month grant for foster parents who take in children. However, neither the federal government nor other provinces have yet to come up with any strategy for helping the orphans themselves.
I think it's okay, because the AIDS virus could wipe out a good percentage of people in Africa if it's not stopped. Anything to prevent AIDS from spreading, even at an early age.
I agree that it's not a bad thing for Africa. But here in the States is a different story. There is NO need to expose small children here to the horrors of HIV. Please do not tell me that they won't be exposed to horrors. There will inevitably be questions from the kids to parents and others. Quite frankly, most 3 or 4 year old kids have no true understanding of death to begin with, so this would be a tough one for them to swallow.
couldn't agree more...i count among my many blessings the fact that we don't share the epidemic of AIDS on this continent in the way they do in Africa.... I don't see anything wrong with this in that context...in fact, it seems to be a kind approach to children who are living with this awful reality. it's time to get up on this problem...not just for Africa, but particularly because of Africa. I am not comfortable turning my head to this...if i were born in another country, this could be my kid dealing with this, either directly or indirectly. i'll join you in that prayer, Relativist!
They're trying to make sure the kids are protected when they tickle their elmo. (That sounded deviously wrong)
Hmmmm... I wonder if SS will create a character for these guys, too... Women's high AIDS rates seen as worsening crisis By Adrian Croft, Reuters, 7/10/2002 ARCELONA - High rates of HIV infection among young African women will lead to a population imbalance that will take generations to overcome and make the AIDS epidemic even worse, a top UN official said yesterday. Specialists called for more prevention efforts to be targeted at young women of child-bearing age to counter the spread of AIDS. United Nations figures show women to be 58 percent of people in sub-Saharan Africa with AIDS or HIV, the virus that causes it. Young women in the region are now up to six times more likely than young men to be infected with HIV, a report by the UN Population Fund said. The result would be a hole in the ''age pyramid'' that had only been seen before in times of war, said Peter Piot, executive director of the UN Program on HIV/AIDS. In wartime, mainly men were affected, but, among the young infected by HIV in Africa, most were women, he said during a press conference at the international AIDS conference in Barcelona. The high rate of infection among women will cut birth rates, because women will die young and many children already born will be orphaned, Piot said. ''There will be societies where in a certain age group there will be far more men than women, and that in itself is going to make the spread of HIV even worse because ... there will be more men who will have sex with the same female partner,'' he said. Societies would take generations to recover, he said. Piot said African teenage girls were generally not infected by boys of their own age, but by older men. ''That is one of the major driving forces of HIV in young people in sub-Saharan Africa,'' he said. Suman Mehta, HIV/AIDS coordinator for the UN Population Fund, said many older men used teenage prostitutes. ''Some HIV-positive men feel that if they have sex with virgins they can be cured of the virus,'' she added. Piot said there was also a lot of ''transactional sex,'' for example, between teachers and their students. Benjamin Raletsatsi, of the Botswana Family Welfare Association, said sexually active young people in his country often did not even know how HIV was contracted.
x34 -- Far from being fodder for a "joke", I think your story highlights the necessesity for intensive AIDS education in Africa.
Balkes, Not intended to be a joke, unfortunately. Trust me, reading this completely disgusts me... There is obviously an HIV education problem in Africa (as in much of our world). The majority of HIV-infected people in the world contracted it not though blood transfusions after an accident/disease, but through acts such as unprotected and/or irresponsible homo/heterosexual contact and IV sharing...its a lifestyle choice most of the time. The article I posted is nothing new...if you find it offensive, then good. Why is the CPB (or equivalent organization) not focusing more on educating the ADULTS of Africa, as opposed to the little children? What exactly are the kids supposed to learn from this? I'd be really surprised if the target audience of SS was responsible for the spread of HIV there... As for children in the US, as I said before, they don't need to know at that age...
x34 -- It wasn't the article I found offensive, but what I felt was an attempt on your part to trivialize what these people are going through. Sesame Street is not focusing on educating adults because that is not their audience. There are growing numbers of aid organizations in Africa that are attempting to address that issue. It is appropriate to educate children, not because they're the ones spreading AIDS, but because they're dealing with the ramifacations of it. Perhaps they'll be better able to deal with why they're orphans if it's explained to them in a compassionate and non-threatening way.
I would like to point out that, as to the use of the Muppet character, the article states that one will be introduced in So. Africa. The Sesame Street v-p [Schneider], says talks are underway to introduce an HIV+ Muppet [not the same character.] in the U.S. So it is likely you are talking about two different characters. It is understandable to introduce the character in S Africa, where the article says 1 in 9 people have the condition. Thus, it is already an issue in children’s lives there. More than likely the intent is to comfort children there; that it is an illness and that people with HIV should be treated as being ill, not as monsters. I think that is the extent to which children of that age need to know about it: that someone is very sick.....and not to treat him in an ugly way. However, in the US we do not have the same conditions or the same culture as S. Africa, so their treatment of the US character should be different, more subdued. Sesame Street pretty much does that already. I would not fear that anything SS does will really cause much controversy in the end. My biggest concern is for the youngest children who watch the show, while they may not intellectually understand the issue, they can be deeply affected emotionally by it. Easy to say: "Oh how wonderful, Sesame Street is going to explain HIV and Aids to my children. Not. Honestly, I believe most parents use Sesame Street and TV in general as a cheap babysitter and do not watch with their kids or interact with them about their reactions to the show or what they've learned. It kind of works as long as the program is mostly about Alphabet and numbers and colors etc. But when a children’s program tackles big issues they should be aware that, while children’s intellects may not yet be developed, they are intuitive and emotional and can be affected not only by what they are told but by what they are not told, i.e., the parts of the “story” that are left out. Television is probably not where children should be introduced to serious illness and death. They may be affected in adverse ways, if no one is there to answer any questions that the show raises. In all probability, many children would never ask questions of their parents and would just internalize their emotional upset. The program will be raising the issue to the child's consciousness, but what kind of answers are most kids going to get from most parents? It is probably a sad testament to parenting in the US if our children need to learn how to treat sick people from their TV set My final point is that parents should not be waiting for a Sesame Street Muppet to save the day; the ball is in their court. And consider this, all good parents will do the right thing, but are all parents good parents all the time? Will Sesame Street really resolve an issue, or will it turn out to be just another good smoke-screen to cover the relatively little commitment to ending the epidemic by the powers that be?
