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‘Sesame Street’ To Educate Refugees, Nick Jonas Releases ‘Sesame Street’ Collaboration Song

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 02:06 PST, Jun 7, 2016

Sesame Street is now promoting humanitarian efforts around the world, according to SBS. Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organization that produces programs for kids, announced it will help millions of displaced people around the world.

Sesame Workshop, which is home to children’s TV series Sesame Street, announced its participation in the initiative that will help with the education of displaced people. It was announced at the World Humanitarian Summit in late May, 2016, that 51 percent of refugees around the world are underage.

In fact, many of those displaced kids have little to no access to education whatsoever. That’s why Sesame Workshop, which moved Sesame Street to premium channel HBO on January 16, 2016, teamed up with the International Rescue Committee to respond to this humanitarian tragedy.

What Sesame Workshop plans to do is create and spread across the world education resources for displaced children as well as their parents. It’s unclear whether this will directly involve Sesame Street, or whether another medium will be used.

In her interview with SBS, IRC Senior Director for Education Sarah Smith said education is the foundation that helps children and their parents recover and heal from the crisis they are currently undergoing.

“However accessing educational services is difficult because as refugees often times the countries that they have fled to don’t have a school system that can easily absorb and meet their needs.”

In fact, it often happens that refugees who are displaced within their own country have their school systems partially or completely ruined due to certain factors. The creator of Sesame Street made the announcement at the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul last month.

Sesame Workshop’s partnership with the IRC has the goal to produce educational content for mobile devices, TV, radio, as well as print. So, it’s expected that Sesame Street and its characters could, in fact, be part of this humanitarian campaign.

Sesame Workshop is fully responsible for the Sesame Street empire, which has developed various methods of using the Muppets to make children attracted to education material of any kind. The IRC, meanwhile, has its presence in more than 40 countries around the world and deals with humanitarian crises, which means it will help Sesame Workshop distribute the content to displaced kids.

Jeffrey D. Dunn, President and CEO of Sesame Workshop, said the organization is well aware of the fact that kids who experience some kind of trauma or stress in their childhood are likely to have problems with their overall brain and cognitive development.

In other Sesame Street news, Nick Jonas may have just released a song about shapes that will become the hit of the upcoming summer, according to ABC News. The 23-year-old musician asked Sesame Street legends Bert, Cookie Monster, and the Count to help him record a music video, which will likely help make this song a true hit.

Jonas released the video for his single “Check That Shape” on May 21, 2016, and Sesame Street fans went crazy when they discovered their favorite characters are in it. The lyrics of the song are somewhat sexual, as the singer sings about “fine shapes” that drive him “out of my mind.”

“Check That Shape” featuring Sesame Street characters makes its full debut during the HBO show’s episode on Saturday, May 21. This type of video is somewhat surprising for Jonas, as the music star usually produces more adult content like “Jealous” and “Chainsaw.” Jonas releases his third solo album on June 10, 2016, but, according to Entertainment Weekly, the Sesame Street collaboration song won’t be featured on the new album.

Sesame Street premiered on November 10, 1969, and TV viewers immediately liked the show for its humor, goofiness, and cultural references. The program features lots of educational content, which is why it indeed could be used to distribute educational material to displaced people.

[Photo by Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Global Citizen Festival]

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