2004

Alam Simsim is a multiple episode, half-hour television series developed by Egyptian educators, child development experts, scriptwriters, and film makers. Designed to provide children with an opportunity to learn a broad range of literacy, numeracy, cognitive, and social interaction skills, Alam Simsim uses humour, music, fantasy, and daily life situations to educate young children. The show is the Egyptian adaptation of the educational television series Sesame Street.

To help extend the messages of the TV series, an outreach initiative was launched in December 2002 that sought to provide parents and caregivers with information and materials to improve their children's health, hygiene, and nutrition, as well as to promote the use of media as an educational tool in improving children's readiness for school. Working closely with local community development associations (CDAs), the outreach team developed a 2-month training component, as well as educational materials for parents and children (such as booklets, flash cards, and a healthy habits calendar).

The study was conducted in Cairo and Beni Suef with a sample of mid- to low-income parents and children, as follows:

• 150 parents and caregivers were sampled in each of the experimental and control communities; 82% were mothers and 17% were fathers, with the average age of both being 31 years.
• 100 children were sampled in each of the experimental and control communities; 54% were male and 46 were female. Half of the children sampled were in the age group of 4 - 5 years while the other half were in the age group of 6 - 7 years.
• 5 households in the experimental communities were observed for a day. Respondents in the experimental and control groups were interviewed/observed immediately before the implementation of the outreach programme; then the same respondents were interviewed one to two months after the completion of the programme.

Approximately 10,600 parents, teachers, and other caregivers in Minya, Beni Suef and Cairo governorates were reached between April 2003 and January 2004.

Awareness of important health behaviours increased after participation in the programme. For example, 32% more parents and caregivers with the experimental group (those exposed to the outreach programme) demonstrated knowledge of the Diptheria, Pertussis (Whopping Cough), and Tetanus (DPT1) vaccine; knowledge levels of DPT1 remained relatively unchanged within the control group.

Health - "In the post-exposure survey, 29 percent of the parents in the experimental group stated that they now take their children to the doctor for regular checkups, compared to only 10 percent of the parents in the control group. Although this variable is not directly comparable with any variable in the baseline survey, this proportion is consistent with the proportion of parents in the experimental group who stated that having regular checkups was a health behavior that changed as a result of the training (27%)."

Hygiene - The outreach programme had a measurable impact on the hygiene of parents/caregivers and the children. For example, exposure to the outreach programme was related to reported increases in the frequency of making sure that children washed their hands before eating (a gain of 5% over the control group); washing face with soap and water (a gain of 15% over the control group); using an individual towel rather than a shared one for drying (a gain of 24% over the control group); brushing teeth (a gain of 26% over the control group); and covering one’s nose or turning away when sneezing (a gain of 34% over the control group).

Nutrition - When parents in the experimental group were asked what they do differently now after they finished the training, the issue mentioned most frequently by parents who had attended the training was the knowledge of different components of balanced, healthy meals. These included the addition of vegetables, making sure that there was a source of protein included in the meal, adding items that have iron such as spinach, diversifying food for meals, etc. The impact of these changes could not be measured directly from the data on specific meal items, but this knowledge was can be an important and valued component in driving behavioural changes. This knowledge of good nutritional practice was also passed on to their children, who were more likely to report changes in their nutritional habits (such as drinking milk and eating more fruits and vegetables) compared with children in the control group.

Email from June Lee to The Communication Initiative on August 17 2005; Alam Simsim Outreach Program Impact Report, Social Planning, Analysis and Administration Consultants (SPAAC), 2004; and "The Impact of Alam Simsim's Health Education Outreach Initiative" - Sesame Workshop, October 2004.