MUMBAI: Continuing its efforts to support the government‘s ‘mother tongue‘ based education policy, Takalani Sesame, the South African children’s program, has added four new languages to its program namely Sesotho, Xitsonga, isiXhosa, and Afrikaans.
Currently in production for its fifth season, the series will feature new characters and celebrity guests and will debut on SABC in August.
Additionally, in a special episode celebrating Earth Day, a "Concert In The Park" is being held. While the neighbourhood children will plant a tree, Zuzu and The Branches will perform their latest hit.
There’s also an episode dedicated to Heritage Month.
How do you say goodbye? The series helps children understand and deal with saying goodbye in different situations. From the expression of “seeing you later” to Uncle Salie preparing to leave Takalani to Kami mourning her mother, the series gives children the tools they need to help with parting from near and dear.
The new season continues to follow a holistic approach to children’s early learning and development by covering educational objectives across the domains of literacy, numeracy, and life-skills. The educational objectives are informed by the National ECD Curriculum.
“We believe that children‘s learning and development is much stronger at a young age when they build on what‘s familiar - therefore providing content in the mother tongue is an educationally sound practice. In season 5 we focus more on the marginalised languages such as Tsonga to increase our audience reach. Takalani allows children to dream and provides first class innovative content that allows children to celebrate their childhood through learning, loving, playing, laughing and realizing their potential,” said SABC head of children’s genre Charles Owen.
“Takalani,” which means “be happy” in TshiVenda, conveys the spirit of happiness and innocence. Takalani Sesame is brought to the children of South Africa through a partnership with SABC Education and Sanlam.
Initial support and funding was provided from the American people through the United States Agency for International Development in support of the South African Department of Education.
Takalani Sesame is produced by Kwasukasukela under the creative direction of Sesame Workshop in collaboration with the South African partners.
