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Bruktawit Tigabu and Shane Etzenhouser, co-founders of "Tsehai Loves Learning," with stars from the show, Tshai (in yellow) and her younger brother Fikir (in red). |
From his office in Addis Abbaba, Shane Etzenhouser, co-founder and producer of "Tsehai Loves Learning," a popular children's television show in Ethiopia, talks about the special series his organization recently produced with Save the Children on issues faced by children orphaned and affected by AIDS. The series aired throughout Ethiopia from September through early November.
Why did you decide to create this special series?
Life in Ethiopia brings you face to face with the harsh realities of poverty on a daily basis. In our personal lives here, we have had our heart broken many times. We've lost very close friends to HIV/AIDS.
Children in Ethiopia are impacted by these harsh realities. So from the very beginning of our organization, from before Tsehai Loves Learning was ever dreamed up, we've wanted to address issues related to the care of orphans and vulnerable children, and children impacted by HIV/AIDS.
But of course these are very sensitive issues. We don't have childhood development experts on staff to help us address challenging issues like HIV/AIDS. So when Save the Children approached us to make these special episodes, we were overjoyed. Save the Children provided some much needed financial support for these episodes, but, more importantly, provided the expertise we needed to refine our approach to these sensitive and challenging topics.
How did you come up with the concept for the show and the new character Tsinat?
We had a couple meetings with Save the Children on the behavior of children who have lost parents, and on methods of helping children cope with loss. Then we brainstormed on the educational objectives of the series. We took all that information back to our Whiz Kids office, and brainstormed on how we would address this topic.
We felt right away that for the majority of children watching, they will need to have the compassion and commitment to help other children cope with loss and fight stigma and discrimination. So we wanted to introduce a new character (Tsinat) that was coping with the loss of her parents, and have the children and viewers help our main character (Tsehai) in supporting this orphaned child.
We choose to make this character a turtle, because of the metaphor of helping her come out of her shell, which isn't really a metaphor in our case. Tsinat retreats to her shell when she's unhappy, and it works really well. Sometimes it can be hard to show a strong emotion on the face of a puppet, but with Tsinat the turtle, you can really see the impact that harsh words or kind words have on her.
What do you hope the show will do?
At most we hope to raise consciousness about orphans and vulnerable children in Ethiopia, and that communities need to take part in caring for them. The problem cannot be solved by the government or non-governmental organizations alone. Everyone has to do their part. We also hope that through the stigma related to HIV increases the need for people to be conscience and loving and supportive. Children are victims in these situations, and stigmatizing them makes no sense at all.
At the very lest, we hope it will model empathy and compassion to our youngest viewers. We don't expect them to get the full scope of the message, but we believe they can learn to be loving and supportive of people around them.
What has been the reaction of people who have watched the show?
The children have responded in a classic textbook manner. For young children, the character on the screen isn't viewed as inanimate. So when Tsehai asks the children for help in solving a problem, they blurt out their answers. And, they seem to have taken to Tsinat and empathize with her. When Tsinat reacts to something, you can see the same emotional responses on the faces of children watching. When there is a little bit of injustice to Tsinat at the end of the four episode series, the children seem to feel it, and want to make things right.
As far as adults go, we were blown away by the reactions. We were shocked by the number of adults who told us they cried when watching the episode where Tsinat is coping with the loss of her mother. These adults see children in much worse situations on a daily basis, so we didn't know if watching a turtle sock puppet in a fictional setting would really touch them, but it seemed to on a much deeper level than we expected.
We designed this show for young children, but we believe it's making an impact on young children, older children and adults.
