Deepalaya - Enabling Self-Reliance

Just imagine how much fun studies can be if cartoon characters like Mickey and Donald start teaching children, alphabets and numbers in their mother tongue. Sesame Workshop, an international NGO, has created an innovative educational programme on the similar lines called “Galli Galli Sim Sim”. It is the Indian version of Sesame Street, the English educational programme of Sesame workshop. Galli Galli Sim Sim is 65 episode preschool television series, created to make education a joyride for Indian children. Its four colourful characters, Chamki, Aanchoo, Googly and Boombah encourage young children to learn basic cognitive and numeracy skills. Along with them, human characters representing different genders, regions and religions act as Galli Galli Sim Sim residents and represent the vibrancy of India’s multi-culturalism. The programme is telecasted on the channel on weekdays from 1pm to 2pm. Deepalaya has been selected as the first partner NGO by Sesame Workshop to disseminate this innovative education to more and more children. The launch of this association happened in tandem with the on air debut of this programme on children’s channel, Cartoon Network on Independence Day. About 2500 children and their parents living at Madanpur Khader enjoyed the special screening of the programme. Sesame Workshop is an international NGO, which creates innovative and engaging educational content for children from birth to age of 12 in over 120 countries worldwide. Rtn T. K. Mathew, Secretary and Chief Executive and Mr. Avijit Dey, Senior Program Manager from Deepalaya, Ms. Veronica George and Sashwati Banerjee from Sesame Workshop, representatives from Turner Bros., Dr. Asha Singh from Irwin College graced the occasion along with Deepalaya staff. The students presented a special programme on the event. It initiated with Ganesh Vandana. Then, Rtn. T. K. Mathew did the lighting of the lamp. The patriotic songs sung by the students of Gole Kuan and Madanpur Khader set up a nationalistic mood. Rtn. T. K. Mathew expressed his heartiest congratulations on the eve of Independence Day. He said that Deepalaya would work instrumentally with Sesame Workshop in the project and help them in achieving their objective. Sesame Workshop expects to reach 20,000 people in a couple of months. Ten Deepalaya Community Mobilizers worked diligently for four days along with the Programme Manager and Programme Executive to motivate the local community and briefed them about the project. At the end, drawing sheets, colourful sketches and games were distributed to all the children for enhancing their creative skills. This project will be extended to other project locations at Deepalaya too. It will include activities for children as well as training events in local balwaadis.