HIV Positive Sesame Street Character

[CrimsonTide4]

I just received word about this . . . as more becomes available I will share but based on this article, what is your response?

Sesame Street to introduce HIV-positive Muppet

July 12, 2002 Posted: 12:35 AM EDT (0435 GMT)


Talks are under way to add an HIV-positive Muppet to the Sesame Street gang, which includes Ernie and Bert.


NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Sesame Street will soon introduce its first
HIV-positive Muppet character to children of South Africa, where one in nine people have the virus that can lead to AIDS.

The upbeat female Muppet will join "Takalani Sesame" on September 30 for its third season on the South African Broadcasting Corp.

The character -- which has yet to have a name or final color or form -- will travel to many if not all of the eight other nations that air versions of the educational children's show that began in the United States in 1969, said Joel Schneider, vice president and senior adviser to the Sesame Street Workshop.

Schneider said talks are under way to introduce an HIV-positive character to U.S. viewers.


Schneider announced the new character this week at the 14th International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, Spain, where he spoke by telephone on Thursday.

"This character will be fully a part of the community," Schneider said. "She will have high self-esteem. Women are often stigmatized about HIV and we are providing a good role model as to how to deal with one's situation and how to interact with the community."

The program is aimed at children from 3 to 7 and the messages delivered by the new character will be "appropriate," said Schneider, meaning that there will be no explicit mention of sex.

"Not every show will deal explicitly with HIV/AIDS," Schneider said. "We want to show that here is an HIV-positive member of our community who you can touch and interact with.

"We will be very careful to fashion our messages so they are appropriate to the age group. What do I do when I cut my finger? What do I do when you cut your finger? That sort of thing."

"Takalani Sesame" will be the second children's show in South Africa to have an HIV-positive character. But it is believed to be the first among shows designed for preschoolers, said Beatrice Chow, spokeswoman for the Sesame Street Workshop in New York.

In some parts of South Africa, 40 percent of women of child-bearing age are infected with HIV, and in 2000, about 40 percent of adult deaths in South Africa were attributed to AIDS, according to the U.S. State Department.

[ykimber]

I think that this is a good idea! Due to the fact there Africa does have a high rate of AIDS cases. Also the fact that it will help children learn that not everyone looks sick and if you are sick you just don't have to sit around and wait to die.

[CrimsonTide4]

South Africa's Sesame Street Gets HIV+ Muppet
Tue Sep 17,12:07 PM ET
By Brendan Boyle

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (Reuters) - South Africa's Sesame Street community welcomed a fluffy five-year-old orphan living with HIV ( news - web sites) Tuesday in the government's latest effort to stem the AIDS ( news - web sites) pandemic ravaging the country and the continent.

Education Minister Kader Asmal was the first outsider to hug Kami, a lively bear-like Muppet with a passion for nature, after her public debut at Cape Town's Groote Schuur Hospital, the only one in the country offering drug therapy for children with AIDS.

Guests saw a snippet of the first show in which Kami is invited to join the familiar Sesame Street characters at play.

"You're beautiful," says Zikwe, the big, blue, gravely voiced kingpin of the show.

Asmal said the character, rejected last year as a member of the original U.S. Sesame Street community, would join the local Takalani Sesame from Sept. 30 to help children infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS to understand the disease.

Takalani means "be happy" in the local Venda language and Kami's name is derived from the Tswana word for "acceptance."

Sesame Street is a pre-school television show based on the popular Muppets series and designed to help children prepare for school.

"Education is the only socially acceptable vaccine available to our people and represents our only hope to save our nation," Asmal said in an address to funders and partners in the project.

"We can't continue to have HIV positive children isolated, demonized, victimized. We want to make all of our children feel comfortable," he said.

The United Nations ( news - web sites) estimates 2.3 million people died of AIDS-related illnesses in Africa last year, leaving hundreds of thousands of children orphaned.

It estimates 28.1 million of the 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS are in Africa and 4.8 million are in South Africa, where one in nine people are infected.

Local AIDS activists say South African President Thabo Mbeki has undermined the campaign against the disease by questioning the link between HIV and AIDS.

The state unsuccessfully fought demands for drugs to limit mother-to-child transmission to the country's highest court.

Drugs to control the disease are freely available to those with medical insurance, but there is no state-funded anti-retroviral program for adults or children living with HIV-AIDS.

The state-owned Groote Schuur hospital runs a foreign-funded pilot program treating children with AIDS.

Yvonne Kgame, general manager for education at the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corp, said HIV/AIDS would become part of the environment of the television show, but not its focus.

Kami would explain that she was born with HIV and that she has no parents, but lives with a loving foster mother, Kgame said.