VIDEO: Meena, India's Dora the Explorer, Helps UNICEF Promote 'Child Rights'

UNICEF launched its annual Child Rights Week this week in Bangladesh. The program is a part of an ongoing grass-roots initiative to educate children and their families about urgent social and public health concerns that range from neonatal health, nutrition, and early childhood education to the practices of dowry and child marriages.

In a country where the literacy rate is still a struggling 53 percent, and the average age that a child drops out of school is 8 years old, mass media as an instructive tool is vitally important. The cartoon heroine Meena, an Indian girl around the age of 10 who lives in a rural village with her family, is the stand-in for a multitude of girls and boys across the subcontinent facing the same issues highlighted by UNICEF — issues which Meena routinely dramatizes on her show.

"Meena is now a daughter not only of Bangladesh but the whole of South Asia," said the UNICEF representative to Bangladesh, Pascal Villeneuve, in a statement on July 27. "She talks about issues affecting girl children in particular, such as education, early marriage, and unequal distribution of household chores."

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ARTICLES / PROJECTS: Children share hopes, dreams through animated short films

Simple paper cutouts, drawings and pieces of clay offered opportunities to laugh and consider dire warnings Friday night during a screening of youth-produced animation at the Children's Media Project in Poughkeepsie.

The animated shorts, produced by students from the Children's Media Project, local schools and children from Brazil, Poland, New Zealand and South Africa, touched on the serious and the silly.

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NEWS / ANIMATION: Topical Tobi! Debuts Abroad March 7

Topical Tobi! Debuts Abroad March 7

Little Airplane Productions’ preschool series Tobi! will premiere March 7 on Nickelodeon Australia and Treehouse TV/Canada.

March 7 is UNICEF’s annual International Children’s Day of Broadcasting, on which the United Nations group asks broadcasters to air programs for, about or by children.

The series is about a little boy who wants to make his world a better place and helps preschool viewers understand such issues as human rights, endangered species and homelessness. Each episode has been researched and tested for comprehension under the supervision of Laura G. Brown, the company’s supervising director of research of curriculum.

“Tobi!’ is designed to help prepare a new generation for the social, ethical and environmental challenges that we all face,” said Josh Selig, president and founder of Little Airplane Productions. “We decided to launch our new series on UNICEF's International Day of Broadcasting because we believe that our goals with this project are in alignment with UNICEF's mission to 'advocate for the protection of children's rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential.'"

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NEWS / CHILDREN'S TV: Magic Journey - Children's TV travels from Kyrgyzstan to Turkey

October2009 - Kyrgyzstan/Turkey

In spring 2009, a delegation from the Turkish Radio and Television station "AVAZ", a newly-established branch of TRT, visited the National Television and Radio Corporation in Kyrgyzstan to pick up TV programmes which would be aired on TRT AVAZ.

The "Magic Journey" was one of the few programmes selected by TRT. The first 50 episodes (15 min each) from the second season have been subtitled into Turkish and have been broadcast every Friday on TRT Avaz from July 2009. Two months later TRT Avaz called their Kyrgyz counterparts and requested more episodes of the Magic Journey and "Meena". "Meena" was produced by UNICEF offices in East Asia to promote girls rights. The UNICEF country office in Kyrgyzstan dubbed "Meena" into Russian and Kyrgyz in 2008 and aired it several times on National and regional TV stations.

The fact that TRT has requested more episodes of the Magic Journey speaksvolumes about its success on TRT AVAZ. In return, the Kyrgyz National Broadcaster will be able to send its staff to Turkey to learn more about the development and production of children TV programmes on TRT free of charge. At present, the President of the Kyrgyz National Television and Radio Corporation and the Head of the Children's and Youth Programmes are visiting TRT in Turkey to formalize the partnership around the exchange of TV programmes and professional staff training.

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NEWS / ARTICLES / CHILDREN'S TV: Metamorphoses of the most popular children's cartoon in Kyrgyzstan

Metamorphoses of the most popular children's cartoon in Kyrgyzstan

How can one make the most popular cartoon in a country even better?

Close your eyes. Imagine you are running with your best friend in a field, with a beautiful kite flying high in the sky above you. You are breathless with joy. But wait! You are really in a vaccination room getting an important immunization. And a few moments ago you were so very scared. So it is with little Akylay and Aktan. With the advice of his best friend, Akylay, little Aktan imagines a happy thought and it worked perfectly: no fear at all, and in fact the vaccination was over before he knew it.

Who are Aktan and Akylay? Almost any child in Kyrgyzstan can tell you. They are the two main characters of ‘Keremet Koch’ (‘Magic Journey’), the animated programme produced by the National TV and Radio Corporation. Since the end of 2006, every day during prime time television, Aktan and Akylay have been gathering Kyrgyz children in front of the TV screen for five minutes of entertainment and education. These five minutes take them on an adventure in a fairy tale world that supports early childhood development and gives children and their parents helpful advice.

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