Sherrie Westin: Empowering Children Through Sesame Workshop

and girls in Afghanistan. That is Sherry Weston, who has spent decades empowering children and creating progress around the world through Sesame Workshop, where she is aided by those famous puppet characters known as the Muppets. I'm Milan Ververe and this is Seneca's one Women to Hear. We are bringing you one hundred of the world's most inspiring and history

making women you need to hear. Sherry Weston was recently named president of Sesame Workshop, but she's been in leadership roles with Sesame since, always on the cutting edge using educational media to help vulnerable children both in the United

States and overseas. Sherry came to Sesame Workshop after a distinguished career in media and in public life, including as Assistant to the President for Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs in the George H. W. Bush administration, and after senior positions at ABCTV and US News and World Report. I've known Sherry for many years, and I've seen how her work at Sesame Workshop brings hope and joy to children

in even the toughest situations. Listen and learn why Sherry Weston is one of Seneca's one Women to hear well. I'm just thrilled to be here today in conversation with Sherry Weston, and I know that our audience will understand why I'm so excited, because what you do, Sherry, is

truly wonderful and we can all relate to it. Over your career, you've held many leadership positions in the media and government, but since you've been at Sesame Street and you are currently the president for Social Impact and Philanthropy. But in just a few weeks you will become the President of Sesame Workshops. So congratulations, thank you, thank you so much. I'm really excited. So for purposes of Sesame, I think many of us are familiar with a Birt

and Ernie and Grover and the whole gang. Uh and some new ones you're gonna tell us about. But what exactly is Sesame Workshop? What do you do? How do you see your mission? Um? What's its scope? Well? Thank you so much, land At such a treat to be here. But yes, you know, I think with Sesame Workshop, I think everyone knows and loves Sesame Street, but they think of it as the iconic UM television show and often

don't know the depth and breadth of our work. And the Sesame Workshop is the nonprofit organization that produces Sesame Street around the world. It was originally called Children's Television Workshop when it was created in nineteen sixty nine. And we our mission is to help children everywhere grow smarter, stronger, and kinder. And what we do is we use media

to help children reach their potential. So, um, if you think about our origins and been just fifty years, over fifty years or two one years ago, when Sesame Street

was created, it really was an experiment. This was the it was the War on Poverty, the Johnson administration and with grants from the Department of Education, Carnegie Corporation, and the Ford Foundation Children's Television Workshop was created to see if television could be used to teach, and more importantly, could it reach less advantaged children who didn't have the same access to quality preschool and give them the opportunity

to arrive at school ready to learn. So soon after we you know, thought we were the quintessential American show, but then Germany and Brazil and Mexico all wanted their own productions, and that's what's led to Sesame workshops global impact around the world, where we're now seen in a hundred and fifty countries, and in many of those countries we create completely local adaptations of Sesame streets, so the characters will be unique, um children will be able to

see themselves on screen. It reflects their culture, their language, and any specific needs of children in that country. So I will also say that I do feel like the need for Sesame has never been greater. When you think of a billion and a half children out of school around the world because of a global pandemic. It really brings home the power of educational media. Just as we you know, we're founded to reach children when they don't

have formal learning access. It's such an important mission that you have, and you know all children benefit from sesame and it really makes a difference for the children at risk. I know that one of the critical programs you have is geared in many ways to girls in Afghanistan, not that boys don't benefit from it too, and I know you'll tell us about that. And it features one of my favorite muppets who to whom I was introduced by

you several years ago, a girl muppet named Zari. So tell us why Zari is so special and what impact she's having and what difference uh it is making an Afghanistan. Well, I'm so glad you asked this, molm because I do think this is one of the great examples to show sort of the power of media and muppets, if you will. In Afghanistan, we have a local production called Bace Simpson which means Sessam Garden and Dari and Pashto, and one of the key curricular goals is girls education and gender equity.

So in creating the content, in creating Race Simpson, we decided the first local muppet, the first Afghan muppet, needed to be a girl, and it needed to be a strong girl role model to show young girls that they can dream big um give them a sense of possibilities they may not have dreamed of. And that led to the creation of Zari. And she wears her for his job. She wears her school uniform, proudly loves to go to school,

loves to learn. And as the seasons progressed, we created a little brother Prazari named Zraq who it also allows us to model stories of Zeroq looking up to his big sister. And with everything we do, you know it is embedded that all of the curricular goals, not only modeling, but UM also showing little boys that it's okay for girls to go to school and for girls and women to have different roles and responsibilities. And what I'm so thrilled to say is that you know there are five

million children in Afghanistan under the age of five. Through radio television, lach Simpson reaches almost four million those children. Zary is the favorite character of boys and girls in Afghanistan. And with everything we do, we study our impact. We do research to prove outcomes so we can raise the philanthropic support to continue the work. And not only do we have UM proven outcomes into literacy and numeracy, but

when we measure attitudes of gender equity. Little boys watch Budgi Simpson test higher almost thirty percent higher on attitudes of gender equity, saying they think it's fine for their sisters to go to school, or um that they think it's fine for girls and women to have different roles. And I think that I'm probably who told you this before.

But the data point that I get the most excited about was from focus groups, qualitative research that the US State Department did, because the U. S State Department has funded this production. And in those focus groups, they found again and again fathers cited bog Simpson as the reason they had changed their minds about permitting their daughter to go to school. And if you think about it, it's I think it's because it's non threatening. It's a children's show.

And yet we know in a country like Afghanistan, almost watch with a parent or caregiver. So it really drives home the potential to plant those seeds for societal change. I love it. I still do so much work in Afghanistan, and you know, there's a great fear uh that the rights that women have achieved over these couple decades may be pushed back. And I think of Zari and the fact that she's not just educating her peer set, but

she is indeed educating the wider society. So it's just so terrific because we don't often think of muppets as the great vehicles for societal change. For sure, I know that Sesame and the International Rescue Committee came together to address the special needs that children have in refugees settings. Can you tell us a little bit about the work you're doing in that very tough arena. Absolutely, this is another one of my favorite initiatives, and it is so

rewarding in so many ways. But we did about you know, if you think back to the height of the Syrian um or the outset of the Syrian conflict. In Syrian crisis, it dawned on us that, you know, more people were displaced than any other time since World War Two, which is still the case, but almost half our children. And so it says to me, we in our global work, we're always looking at what are the most pressing issues children face and are their places where we can make

a difference. So we had done a lot of work in the Middle East, in Egypt and Jordan's in Israel, Palestine, we had done local Arabic productions, and we felt like, in order to address the huge number of displaced Syrian children UM in throughout that region, that we really couldn't

do it alone. And so I did go to David Miliban, who heads the I r C, and we UM suggested that we work together, that we form a partnership, and we would take our Arabic content, you know, and adapt it, and then we would empower his irc um tremendous staff and on the ground to have content to use home visits, to use for learning centers, UM all local Arabic content.

And soon after we started this pilot in Jordan's Um, we learned of the MacArthur Foundations first ever hundred and Change Award, which was giving a hundred million dollar grant to an organization addressing a pressing need of our time. And UM once again went back to the I r C and said, will you join us on this because we we think this is one of the most pressing needs. And lo and behold, we were selected for that first ever grant and it is so important and so powerful

for so many reasons. But this is allowing us to create the largest early childhood intervention in the history of humanitarian response, and it really, um, it really struck me as we looked into this that less than three percent of all humanitarian aid goes to education, and yet there is so much research today that shows that if we reach children in their critical early years, we can have

the greatest impact. So I think the other thing that I'm so excited about is it really shines a spotlight on the need and on the potential when we're reaching children in crisis settings. And within a year, the Lego Foundation stepped up and gave another grant of a hundred billion dollars and that has allowed us to deepen our impact in the Middle East with learning through Play and to expand this program to the Rhinga crisis to reach

children in Bangladesh. And oh my goodness. Yeah, it's very it's really it's really um audacious and and it's really groundbreaking. And again, our hope is that this will be a catalyst for others, whether it's Sesame or not, just to be investing in reaching children in their early years, because it's it's those who are affected the most really received the least, so often we don't keep children in mind in conflict settings. It's really wonderful and and these children

see themselves in the Muppets. Do you have an array of Muppets that are now in these different settings are how does this work? Yes? Well, we you know in UM in the Middle East where we're in Iran and Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria with this program a han senson and that

means welcome sesame in Arabic. It's also seen throughout the Middle East because of we're on both terrestrial and and satellite UM, which is so important because it's not just for Syrian refugees or displaced children, but their new neighbors side by side in Jordanian children, leban these children and in this as you point out, it's so important for children to be able to identify with these characters and to have storylines that they can relate to. So Inhln Simpson,

there are two new muppets. One is named Jodd. He's five and a half years old and he had to leave his home and he becomes best friends with an adorable little purple muppet in Bosma. And so right there you can start to see that storyline of children, someone who had to leave who becomes best friends with someone else.

From a different place. And again the curriculum is is you know, instilled in everything we do, but we're also able to model those social emotional um issues and and giving children sort of the we like to say it's the emotional A, b c S. The building blocks they need, particularly for vulnerable children who have experienced trauma senecas one hundred women to hear will be back after the short break.

This is just so compelling. You know, we talked about Sorry a little bit in the tremendous impact she's having in Afghanistan, and we know that girls are still not valued and many places in the world they still have a very rough time going to school, leaving school, etcetera. Do you see many of your muppets empowering girls specifically?

You know, absolutely. I mean, I think perhaps because it's such a specific intention on our part to make sure in every country we're in that we have powerful girl role models. But I watch, you know, one of the things that's so amazing is how universal the appeal of muppets is, whether it's in a refugee camp or in South Africa or in Bangladesh, to see children just light up um and these characters are so engaging. I think that's what gives them the ability to teach and also

to model behavior change around sanitation, water UM. You know, we do a lot of wash work to model attitude change, like girls education, UM, conflict resolution, And I think one of the things that I find the most rewarding is media allows you to reach girls and boys, and in so many places where girls aren't UM in school, this is sort of a universal opportunity to reach them side

by side, but also to model for them possibilities. Just really really a terrific investment that has just enormous payoffs for these children everywhere. COVID has affected all of us, uh, and I wonder how it's affected Sesame workshop, what Milan. Honestly, you know, it's been so hard on everyone obviously, but but as I mentioned earlier, it just reinforces how important

what we do is. And I feel so grateful to get up every day through all of these um challenging times knowing that what we're doing is intended to help and to make a difference. And we did have to pivot UM we we began production. We couldn't go in studios either. You couldn't have the Muppets on Sesame Street in a production studio here or in a mon Jordan's

and so we had to just start producing virtually. If you look at some of our specials during UM the outset of the pandemic, we did a lot of family specials to model learning opportunities at home for parents, and it looks like a zoom call. You'll see Anne Hathaway in a corner and Lynn Manuel and Elmo and Cookie. And we have been very fortunate because we also received funding again from the Lego Foundation to create these specials around the world and we've done so now in over

fifty countries in thirteen languages. And and when parents don't have the opportunity to send their childish school, they need resources, they need insights and tips on how to create a learning environment at home, and they have access to media.

So we've also done short form and a lot of content specific to COVID in helping parents respond, helping them address the challenges, the socio emotional challenges that this presents to children and basic prevention messages and those I am thrilled to say have been uh distributed over a hundred countries in over thirty nine languages, and we've provided hundreds of hours of educational media to ministries of education around

the world. We've created CNN town Hall specials to answer parents and children's questions, and will continue to look at every way we can to respond to the needs of families and children during these challenging times. And so for us to be able to provide the tools and the language and the resources to do so in an age appropriate way, I think is so important. It's really great. So, Sherry, I've admired so much what you've been able to do over the years, and I wonder a little bit about you.

Was there something in your childhood or background that made you the leader that you are the woman you are today doing this great, great work. I can't think necessarily

of a pivotal moment. But it's funny because I was talking to Hank Paulson recently, who has also started, you know, doing podcasts, and and he asked a question about, you know, what sparked your interest in UM public service and and and I was thinking back, it was, you know, thinking about growing up and I I guess for everyone were who we become as a product in some part of our parents and my parents, you know, my mother is the most outgoing. Um always love children. We grow up

with just children and friends and neighbors everywhere. She was the favorite mom, so everyone came to our house. And my father has a great storytell or, a great um has a great sense of humor. And when I look at my path on how I got to Sesame Street, it wasn't a straight line, but they instilled in me sort of a love of children, and so I really thought i'd be a teacher. I loved education. I worked

with children my whole life. When I went to Washington after college, because you're so excited about all that Washington offers. At that age, I got much more involved in politics and and public service and media and really started to understand when I was at the White House that you public service could be used to address systemic issues rather than one on one with the child. We could do

so much through government through public service. And it's a long way of saying that when I adopted my daughter Lily, I had gone back to ABC and I that is my pivotal moment. It wasn't as a child, but all of those things caring about children, interested in education, tying that into public service and media. I think when I became a mom and adopted my daughter from China. It all came together because I focused then on the importance

of educational media. For the first time, I was paying attention to children's programming and quality children's programming, and Sesame Street was just the perfect place I could combined everything I cared about education. What better place to be as a as a mom and policy and communications and as a nonprofit organization doing the work we're doing, and the

need to raise the money to support that work. It's so important to tell these stories and to and I will say if there's every if there's any pivotal moment in helping me connect all those dots and end up where I did. It was becoming Lily's mom. Oh that's so beautiful. And now you're the mom of so many children around the world because you're doing all of these amazing good works for them. As we end this wonderful conversation,

what makes you optimistic? I have a feeling I know what you're gonna say, but but really, what gives you hope today? Because there is so much of a feeling of depression and darkness, uh and people having a really rough time. Well, I mean, if you anticipate what I'm going to say. It's probably children, and and that that is I mean, I don't want to sound cliche that children are the hope, but I I feel that so deeply.

And I would say, in spite of these incredibly challenging times, one thing that does encourage me is that because of this pandemic, education is more top of mind than ever. And in all of my convergensations internationally globally, there is no one talking about how we recover um and build back better, if you will, from what we've learned that doesn't focus on education. We have to and I feel like it's put um children at the top of the issues that matter most and and I hope that includes

early education. I think there's a much greater appreciation of how important that is, and that does give me some sense of optimism. Well, thank you so much, Sherry, thank you for what you do. We thank sesame workshop, congratulations on the new position you're about to take on. Thank you so much and continued good luck for the sake

of the children here in our country and around the world. Well, can I say one last thing, Milon, because when you think of role models and when you think of inspiring young women and girls. You are at the top of that list, and you have made such a difference by inspiring so many of us, so I want to thank you as well. Oh well, that's lovely. I probably shouldn't have given you extra time for that, but anyway, ever,

onward as we say, and thanks again. It's amazing how much good can be accomplished with vision, persistence, and a cast of fuzzy muppets. Here are three things I took away from my conversation with Sherry Weston. First, never underestimate the power of media and muppets. In Afghanistan, for instance, Sesame Workshop has not only improved children's literacy scores, but also persuaded their parents that sending their daughters to school

is a good thing. Second, as Sherry tells us, we must not forget about the world's ongoing humanitarian crises, such as the millions of people displaced by the Syrian conflict, and we can help make a real difference there by directing resources to children's early education. Finally, remember that representation matters.

A world of possibilities opens up for children when they see themselves reflected in the media, whether it's Zari the girl muppet in Afghanistan who joyously attends school, or the purple muppet named Bosma will be friends a refugee boy muppet named Jad. Kids can absorb the most serious and important lessons when they're accompanied by a dose of relatability, and for that we can thank Sherry Weston and Sesame Workshop.

Tune in next Tuesday to hear about our next featured woman and discover why she's one of Seneca's one Women to Hear. Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear is a collaboration between the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio, with support from founding partner Pung. Have a Great Day,