Children TV series introduces HIV positive puppet

An HIV positive muppet will soon join the cast of South Africa's Takalani Sesame, a local television production of children's educational programme, Sesame Street.

With the appearance of Kami, a muppet living with HIV, Takalani Sesame will become the first pre-school television programme to tackle the stigmatisation associated with the disease.

"The muppet was developed in response to local needs. It became apparent that it was critical and absolutely necessary to address this issue," Robert Knezevic, Sesame Workshop's assistant vice-president of international projects, told PlusNews.

The muppet was unveiled at a press conference held on Tuesday in Cape Town, by the Sesame Workshop, the Department of Education, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

The addition of the character would promote age-appropriate messages that would create acceptance of people living with HIV/AIDS, Sesame Workshop said in a statement.

"The series will help promote an understanding that HIV is a virus and that people cannot determine that other people are HIV-positive just by looking at or touching them," the statement added.

The educational project will also include television, radio and community outreach projects. It has been designed to support children in their first years of school in conjunction with South Africa's education system.

"Television and radio broadcasts reach more than 15 million young South African children every week, many from underprivileged backgrounds. South Africans have now taken another a creative step forward by developing a new HIV-positive Muppet to help the country's children learn to cope with HIV/AIDS ravaging the country and affecting their daily lives," USAID administrator, Andrew Natsios, said in the statement.

Targeted at children aged between 3 to 7 years, Takalani Sesame's lessons are illustrated through humour, music, fantasy and daily life situations.

"Kami's arrival is a sign of hope, and proof that no one is too young to learn about AIDS," UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot said in a statement welcoming the initiative.