York Times: Sesame Workshop

york times: The Lego Foundation, Sesame Workshop and refugee aid organizations are teaming to create play-based learning programs for children up to age 6 in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Bangladesh, according to Toronto Star. RYAN DONNELL / Sesame Workshop/The New York Times The aim is to create play-based learning programs for children up to age six in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Bangladesh. In its first major humanitarian project, announced on Wednesday, the foundation will provide 100 million U.S. over five years to the makers of Sesame Street to deepen their work with the International Rescue Committee in the countries around Syria, and also to partner with the Bangladeshi relief organization BRAC. In an undated photo provided by the Sesame Workshop, youths with a Sesame Street doll at a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh. The programs will teach basics like the alphabet and numbers, but will also emphasize social and emotional development to counter the effects of stress and suffering. Officials at the organizations involved said that helping children's brains develop during their first years when they are absorbing information like sponges is crucial to helping them become healthy and successful later in life, and that play is an excellent way to do it. They will be offered both to displaced children and to some of their potential friends in host communities. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.