How Sesame Street is helping Ukrainian children traumatized by war

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• Amna Nawaz:

  The experience of war is an enduring trauma for anyone, but it is especially hard on children. Death and displacement, doubts and fear acutely damage children's psyches and their ability to cope.

  But trusted friends are now aiding Ukraine's children.

• Geoff Bennett:

  The Sesame Workshop, which has produced the iconic children's program for decades, is being used in Ukraine to help children experiencing what none should ever have to withstand.

  Special correspondent Jane Ferguson reports for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Educating children at times of war demands much from teachers. These Ukrainian children are some of the first to access videos created by the workshop of America's iconic children's program "Sesame Street."

  They are made especially to help children learn to cope with strong emotions, communicate with each other, and escape the constant pressures of war, all in the Ukrainian language.

• Tatyana Sorokopud, Ukrainian Teacher (through translator):

  Children are surrounded by constant information of the war, destruction, killing and death, and it affects them. They become more anxious. My clinic works also with children with special needs, and it affects them especially. They become even more emotionally unstable.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Tatyana Sorokopud runs a small school near Kyiv. As the war grinds on outside, she and her staff fight to help little minds grow, despite the undeniable stresses they must endure.

• Tatyana Sorokopud (through translator):

  The videos "Sesame Street" provides for us are very interactive, and this is very good, because children are interested and pay attention. These cartoons and other exercises evoke emotions from them, and it keeps them distracted from the horrors of war.

  Because children have become more anxious and vulnerable due to the war, their attention span is limited. It's around 10 minutes. We have to change the activities for children to keep them interested, to keep them occupied. This is why having games for them is helpful.

• Jane Ferguson:

  War impacts children differently from adults.

  Estee Bardanashvili, Senior Director and Supervising Producer, Sesame Workshop: As we're hearing from research and from early childhood development experts, it is affecting the child's brain development.

  The prolonged stress or exposure to trauma can delay development, can delay their health and well-being, mental well-being.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Estee Bardanashvili is the director of Sesame Workshop and oversees the creation of content that is most helpful to children of war.

  So far, half-a-million Ukrainian children have watched this content since the project's launch in March, according to her.

• Estee Bardanashvili:

  Content development happens with experts in the fields. I'm a producer. But it's the education team, it's our early childhood development experts, it's our cultural advisers, our linguistic advisers to really guide us to understand, what is it that kids really need?

  Well, how do you address the needs of children as they're experiencing war, as they're being picked up in the middle of the night and off to another country or another city, and at the same time understanding that they're still learning. They are still children. They need those playful, fun, cheerful moments in their lives. And how do we also create content for the parents to talk to their children?

• Jane Ferguson:

  Some of the answers to these questions comes from experience.

  "Sesame Street" first launched an Arabic-language service catering to the unique needs of reunions of displaced Syrian children in 2018, from outreach programs in camps, to YouTube content and videos for use in classrooms. That content focused not just a learning traditional school subjects, but also how to cope with overwhelming emotions and how to communicate them to others.

  Over five million Syrian children accessed those videos, and the program was expanded to include Arabic characters. In Ukraine, Sesame Workshop has also developed online content for families, profiling children living through the war, like 11-year-old Denys, who chose to talk about his passion for dance.

  We caught up with Denys via zoom at his grandfather's house on the south coast of Ukraine. Like so many Ukrainian children, just getting an education is a challenge. Schools have been repeatedly closed due to the dangers.

• Denys Romaniuk, Ukrainian Student (through translator):

  When there were attacks on Kyiv, I had to learn online at home. After that, we tried to go back to school for two weeks, and then home for two weeks. But, later, there were blackouts and no electricity.

  So we had some difficulty with the Internet and learning, but I was still able to keep up somehow, and ended the school year with good grades. There was an air raid alert during our graduation ceremony. And we all had to run into the shelter.

• Jane Ferguson:

  For children like Denys, learning online has been crucial.

  "Sesame Street"'s Ukrainian videos are available on YouTube, as well as the "Sesame Street" Web site.

• Denys Romaniuk:

  For most all subjects, you can find videos about them. You can find on YouTube, watch them, and learn something.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Learning online has become an opportunity for Ukrainian children not to let the war hold back their educations. Having access to the Internet and materials and videos helps parents keep their minds engaged.

• Denys Romaniuk:

  My favorite lesson is English, really?

  (LAUGHTER)

• Denys Romaniuk:

  Yes, it's English. I actually learned most of English, not from lessons, but from YouTube videos.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Really?

• Denys Romaniuk:

  I watched a big lot of YouTube videos in English. Almost all time, I watch videos about computers, because this is my hobby. I have tons of memory cards, so I can experiment with different Windows versions.

• Jane Ferguson:

  And is that something you want to do when you grow up?

• Denys Romaniuk:

  Yes, I want to become an I.T. specialist.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Fantastic. It sounds like you're already on your way.

• Denys Romaniuk:

  Yes. Yes.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Well, I…

• Denys Romaniuk:

  I already could code some little programs for Windows.

• Jane Ferguson:

  That's really impressive, Denys. That's amazing. Do you learn coding? Does YouTube help with that?

• Denys Romaniuk:

  Definitely.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Denys is not alone. Many children and families feel the same, according to studies by Sesame Workshop's teams of experts.

• Estee Bardanashvili:

  Everything we do is based on research. And the for very early months, we had looked at the landscape. Where are Ukrainians getting most of their content? What are they comfortable showing their children, which platform status?

  And what we found was that, predominantly, Ukrainians in Ukraine and outside were using YouTube content.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Another family-focused video shared by Sesame Workshop captures the life of a little boy called Platon. His mother moved with him to the Carpathian Mountain region in Ukraine's southwest, far from the front line of fighting.

  Their video explores life in this unique rural setting, says Platon's mother, Antonina.

  Antonina Siplivchak , Mother of Platon (through translator): The main goal of the videos is to show that Ukraine is very big and diverse and rich in traditions, and that the influence of these different cultures cannot be underestimated.

  The Carpathian Mountains region alone has three distinct cultural identities.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Even though they are far away from the front lines, the children are separated from their fathers helping with the war effort, and risk being constantly bombarded by news from the fighting.

• Antonina Siplivchak (through translator):

  The first rule is for parents to take care of themselves and their own emotional health, because only when they have strength and resources can they take care of children.

  I also don't think children should know certain things about the war, for example, how many people have been killed, how many have been injured. They should just know the general information, that our country has been invaded, that our soldiers are defending our country, often at the cost of their lives.

• Jane Ferguson:

  Sesame Workshops are now developing more content for parents, where experts help them know what to do when children are afraid and how to cope themselves with the pressures of parenting during conflict.

  The videos are also now being broadcast in partnership with Ukraine's largest children's TV channel. Plans for them to move onto satellite channels are under way. It's a rare blessing for children of war to so widely have access to the Internet and TV and an opportunity to mitigate just some of war's hardships and lessen its hold over their lives.

  For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jane Ferguson.

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