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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 8 , 2006
Egypt’s Sesame Street Focuses on Hand Washing to Help Prevent Avian Flu Spread
Effort is Part of Communication for Health Living Project
TV spots and materials focusing on handwashing and hygiene produced under USAID-supported Communication for Healthy Living project implemented by the Health Communication Partnership in collaboration with Sesame Workshop’s "Alam Simsim."
 CAIRO —Adults and children throughout Egypt are picking up the
habits of handwashing, good hygiene and safe water storage from the street—Sesame
Street. Felfel, Khokha, and Nimnim from the popular children’s
show Alam Simsim are the latest celebrity spokespersons to join Communication
for Healthy Living’s (CHL) Sahatek, Sarwetak (Your Health,
Your Wealth) national family health campaign. Two public service announcements
(PSAs) featuring the much-loved characters began airing on Egyptian state television
channels in early March 2006, supplemented by leaflets for children, care-givers,
and service providers.
Handwashing, hygiene, and safe water storage are integral to the Sahetak,
Sarwetak campaign, which focuses on empowering families to protect their
health through adopting simple habits and making informed choices about health
practices. Targeting children with simple messages helps instill healthy
habits that will help protect their health throughout their lives. These
messages are particularly relevant at a time when Egypt is depending its
citizens to control an outbreak of Avian Influenza.
The TV spots and materials were produced through a partnership between Alam
Simsim and CHL, a USAID-funded project working with the Ministry of Health
and Population (MOHP), the Ministry of Information-State Information Services
(MOI-SIS), and partners in the private and NGO sectors. Working through
the MOI, CHL was able to secure prime time placement of the spots on Channels
1 and 2 through the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU). The spots
will air for three months alongside the half-hour Alam Simsim series
every weekday afternoon, ensuring a high reach into the target audience of
children and caregivers.
 Over ½ million
flyers have been produced as part of the Alam Simsim-CHL collaboration
and are being distributed throughout Egypt by CHL’s network of health
outreach workers in the government and NGOs, and through the Ask-Consult network
of 13,000 private pharmacists, a component of CHL’s private sector program.
In developing the content, CHL drew on the expertise of partners in the USAID-funded
NAMRU-3, which provides technical assistance to the Ministry of Health and
Population in the area of infectious disease surveillance and response.
Alam Simsim is a joint production between Cairo’s Al Karma Productions
and Sesame Workshop, the creator of television’s Sesame Street, in New
York, with active support and involvement from Egyptian education, media, film,
television, and artistic communities. Funding is provided by the USAID-Egypt,
in cooperation with Egypt's Ministries of Education and Information. Alam
Simsim’s current activities with CHL grow out of a 2002 global partnership
between Sesame Workshop and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s
Center for Communication Programs, a pioneer in the field of strategic, research-based
health communication.
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