From: "Emilio Travieso, S.J." <emiliotravieso@xxxxxxxxx>
Sharing this great news.
They are offering the videos for free to schools and community
organizations in Haiti.
If anybody is interested, you can reach them through the Facebook page
(LakouKajou) or email Alexandrine Benjamin at
alexandrinebenjamin@xxxxxxxxx
….
It’s not Big Bird. Meet Tilou and Lili in this Sesame Street-inspired
Haiti series
MiamiHerald DECEMBER 20, 2016
BYJACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
PORT-AU-PRINCE
A bespectacled blue-haired Tilou runs to the meeting spot beneath a
towering mahogany tree seeking advice from his friends. He wants to make a
surprise gift for twin sister Lili, he says, but doesn’t know where to
begin.
“Do you have a plan?” a yellow Sponge Bob-like book figure asks before
another character, an inquisitive lizard, chimes in, “Everything has a
process.”
Andso begins the lesson on pwosesis or process in Lakou Kajou (pronounced
La-KouKa-jou), a new Kreyòl-language educational television program that
recently began broadcasting on Télé Soleil, a family-friendly station run
by the Roman Catholic Church in Port-au-Prince.
The Sesame Street-inspired programming — which combines colorful
animation, 3-Dgraphics and live action with real kids and adults — is a
first for Haiti, a country with one of the lowest literacy rates in the
hemisphere and where animated television shows for children are as
non-existent as adequate books and qualified teachers in many classrooms.
Aimed at young children, the 15-minute episodes focus on subjects such as
photo synthesis, geography, evaporation, and process. And all of it is in
the language of the masses, Haitian Creole or Kreyòl, as opposed to
French, the prevailing language of instruction in most schools.
“Why it’s unique? Because it’s so Haitian. We don’t have that here,” said
headwriter Gilbert Mirambeau Jr., whose employer, Muska, co-produced the
series along with Los Angeles-based filmmaker Linda Hawkins Costigan and
Charlotte Cole, former Sesame Workshop senior vice president for global
education.
Written and produced in Port-au-Prince , the series provides Haitian
children with cultural references — and cartoon characters they can relate
to.
Take,for example, the show’s name Lakou Kajou, which means the Mahogany
Courtyard in English. The mahogany, or kajou tree as it is known in
Kreyòl, is where Haitians often gather to tell tales in their lakou, the
central space that’s an essential part of rural family life. It’s also the
place where 6-year-oldtwins, Tilou and Lili, embark on adventures with
friends in the series.
The two “have their ups and downs; they have their personalities and they
are not perfect,” said Cole, who was in charge of curriculum development
and research for Sesame’s international projects before leaving three
years ago. “What we are trying to do is provide protagonist characters
that look Haitian, that are relaying the stories and are relatable to
kids.”
While television viewing in Haiti remains limited to those with access to
electricity, there are no shortages of television channels in the country.
Butkid-friendly programs are scarce. Haitian airwaves are consumed by
political talk shows, sleek commercials for products most people can’t
afford, seductive MTV-like music videos and French-dubbed imported soap
operas.
Of 128 authorized television channels, about 78 are on air, said Jean
Marie Altemathe head of CONATEL, Haiti’s version of the Federal
Communications Commission.
Over the years, there have been some Haitian reference children’s shows
and international quality kids’ programming. But they are mainly
broadcasts from French TV. This is the first Haitian-produced program
based on international standards and with educational value.
“We don’t have this kind of production in Haiti,” said Mirambeau.
The brainchild of Cole and Costigan, the series’ ultimate goal is to make
learning fun, and to educate children through modeling as they watch their
characters wash their hands or use a mosquito net, for example.
“Learning is beautiful in Lakou Kajou. That’s not an experience the
majority of children have in Haiti where learning is usually painful and
school is not pretty,” said Josiane Hudicourt-Barnes, an educator who
recently chaired a workshop session focusing on Kreyòl use in the program
to help formulate a new batch of episodes.
Hudicourt-Barnes,who also participated in the first curriculum seminar,
said science was the series’ debut by Haitian educators because “very
little [science] is available to the children in Haiti.
“One of the issues with education in Haiti is there is so little focus on
understanding and more focus on memorizing words,” she said. “This TV
program will help kids know what it is to understand a concept.”
The Rev. Claudy Duclervil, general director of Télé Soleil, which is
airing the episodes for free, said the response has been positive.
“During the airing, people sent us emails and text messages telling us
they are very happy,” Duclervil said. “I’m very happy with it.”
The idea of the show was born a decade ago while Costigan was producing
and directing the documentary film, “The World According to Sesame
Street.” Filming took her to Bangladesh, Kosovo, South Afrirca and El
Salvador, during which Costigan observed the intense process in which
Sesame Workshop tapped local educators to help it identify what the needs
were to make the productions.
“I was really affected by how children from all of these countries got to
see representations of themselves, their culture, and what was familiar to
them onscreen,” she said. “It’s a really empowering thing to see that
rather than just getting imported television, imported ideas.”
So Costigan, whose mother is Haitian and had always had the country in her
consciousness, thought to herself, “Why can’t we do this 600 miles off the
coast of Florida? Why can’t we do this in Haiti?”
She approached Sesame Workshop where Cole championed the idea. But after
several starts and stops, the idea of bringing Sesame Street to Haiti
died.
Then three years ago, Cole, who had just left Sesame Workshop after 20
years, called Costigan. She wanted to know if the filmmaker was still
interested in doing a project in Haiti. “Absolutely,” Costigan said.
The two soon flew to Port-au-Prince where they funded their own
feasibility study before receiving funding from the W.K. Kellogg
Foundation to produce the series. Over the course of months, they brought
together a team of researchers,educators, linguists, producers, directors
and animators.
To create the character, the women tapped well-known Haitian illustrator
and comic book artist Chevelin Pierre. For the animation, they turned to
brothers Jud-Alix and John Francois of Ayitikomik. The brothers are the
stars behind Haiti’s only other cartoon character, Ti-Joël. Unlike Tilou
and Lili, however,Ti-Joël appears in one-minute animated spots focused on
public service announcements about cholera and littering.
Former Haiti Education Minister Nesmy Manigat who championed the use of
technology inthe classrooms and Kreyòl instruction in science and math
rather than in French— a language many children do not fully understand —
said he’s excited about the series.
“It offers a constructive and engaging way to keep children occupied
during their free time,” Manigat said. “In addition to reinforcing the
fact that children can and do learn from different sources and in less
formal settings, it is a less intrusive way to introduce technology in
education in Haiti.”
And while Sesame Street inspired the production, it is anything but the
popular PBS staple. There are no Muppets or even Big Bird. What there are,
are lessons learned from Sesame’s success — and the window word ladies. An
homage to Costigan’s tight Haitian family circle of instructive aunts and
cousins, the ladies yell out the word of the day in each episode to
reinforce learning.
Among the lessons, creators say: Children learn best when the educational
material they are exposed to is relevant, mapped to their own experiences
and related to the environment in which they are growing up.
“The closer it is to their reality, the easier the learning is,” said
Cole, who holds a doctorate in human development and psychology from
Harvard School and runs the nonprofit Blue Butterfly Collaborative.
“Having them count things that are familiar — mangoes as opposed to apples
— is easier.”
Another lesson is that young children learn best when they are learning in
their home language.
Few issues get Haitians emotionally charged as the debate over Kreyòl vs.
French.Both are the country’s official language, and both carry their own
cultural significance and schools of thought.
But choosing to go with Kreyòl for the episodes didn’t put the debate to
rest. In fact, some of the most highly charged discussions centered around
the use of Kreyòl and its distinct grammatical structures and sound
patterns. Among the issues: regional dialect and what word should be used
when there is more than one word in Kreyòl or no word at all.
“The language was a major challenge because there are two types of schools
within the academy,” said Mirambeau, recalling the debate over the word
“stream.”
With no exact translation, the linguists tossed around and debated several
words from ti rivyè, little river, to ti dlo, little water.
“Ultimately,we have to go with what’s best for the kids,” Mirambeau said,
“because it needs to be fun at the end of the day.”
Thank you. If you wish to join or unsubscribe please click on this link:
//www.freelists.org/list/corbettlist
