Tuesday, April 30, 2024
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“Sisimpur”, the programme that embarked on television aiming to turn learning into a more enjoyable experience for pre-primary and primary grade children, has completed 19 years and steps on to its 20th year on April 15.
Every year, April 15 is celebrated as “Sisimpur Day” as it was the day Sisimpur went on air for the very first time. With the help of the television show, school and community engagement events, storybooks and learning materials, Sisimpur helps children identify letters, identifying letters from words, match words with letters, create sentences with words and more.
Children are also encouraged to use materials from their surrounding environment to identify and learn colours and words. For example, the beginning letters of the words such as house, banana, mango, table, clock, cow, tree, leaf, pen, book and more are all taught through play.
Through the characters of Sisimpur, different elements of the environment such as colours, shapes, etc. are taught. The accurate pronunciation of Bangla language has always been regarded as an essential component at Sisimpur which is why all the Sisimpur puppets and human characters all use standard Bangla pronunciation.
At the same time the dialects, cultures and life-styles of different areas are always celebrated and portrayed through Sisimpur content. This enables the children to respect and celebrate various cultures and dialects which are different than theirs.
At present, the 16th Season of Sisimpur is being telecasted on television. The popular television programme is shown everyday on national television BTV, Duronto TV, RTV and Maasranga TV. From the onset of this endeavour, Bangladesh Television has been broadcasting Sisimpur programme for the past 19 years with the cordial support of the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affair of Bangladesh. Over 10 million population of the country is currently enjoying the programme through the four television channels.
Sisimpur has always been one of the main attractions for the children at the Amar Ekushey Book Fair. During the weekends, children join the fair in large numbers to spend quality time with their favourite Sisimpur characters Ikri, Halum, Tuktuki and Shiku in addition to purchasing the Sisimpur storybook titles. This has already become an integral part of the Amar Ekushey Book Fair every year.
Regarding the accomplishment of Sisimpur’s 19 years journey, the Managing Director of Sesame Workshop Bangladesh, Mohammad Shah Alam mentioned that the programme is catering to meet the early education needs of 3 to 8 years old children. The goal is also to support the needs of the parents, caregivers and teachers.
Through joyfulness and play, Sisimpur plays an integral role in the holistic development of the child. Language-letters; Mathematics; Environment; Gender equality; Social values and behaviour; Tolerance and respect for differences and diversity are all key messages being disseminated through the program.
There are also content focused on balanced and nutritious food; Healthy Habits; Earthquake; Road safety and drowning related water safety; building awareness against injury prevention; Giving ideas about income-expense and savings to children. Sisimpur also emphasises on showing mutual respect, affection, admiration towards unity and diversity among the cultures as well as the people of the country.
Sesame Workshop Bangladesh implements all its interventions in Bangladesh in close collaboration with public, private and international organizations. In the last 19 years, Sisimpur collaborated with public partners such as the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, Ministry of Culture, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Authority and more.
Sisimpur started its journey in Bangladesh through the generous support of USAID, who still continues to be a valued partner in Sisimpur’s journey in Bangladesh.
Sisimpur is the Bangladeshi counterpart of New York-based educational television series Sesame Street which is co-produced in Bangladesh through Sesame Workshop Bangladesh.
