World Summit on Media for Children and Youth, Karlstad Sweden 2010

PATTI MILLER HAS A HEART OF GOLD

Patti Miller had a amazing session about building healthy habits for life around the world. Sesame Street had just started their 41 years old work and they are still experimenting.

"We always experiment for the search for the best result", Patti Miller explains. The Sesame team work hard in those countries that needs help within HIV and aids questions. Even malaria is a big problem in some of the countries. A lot of work is in India, and they have a show since few years back - ”Gali Gali Simpson” it's called.

There are 1000 people that die every day from aids in South Africa. It is a big problem. The show that they are playing is a way to show how you can manage in life if you have HIV and also warning children how you can get it and how to be healthy enough to not be positive with HIV. With the Sesame Puppets it gets easy for the children to understand these imporant questions and statements in disease early age. The show is also like a documentary that explains how you do if you bleed to NOT get HIV, how to manage not to be bitten from mosquitos to protect yourself from malaria for example.

Do you think we need time limits for kids and media?
Yes absolutely! Like anything else there needs to be moderation. Media can be wonderful for kids depending on what kind of content they see in, you know if it’s educational, it can be fabulous if you have great benefits in terms for prepering them for school or teaching them about the importance of health. But then again there always have to be limits. You don't want your kids sitting in front of the tv for hours on end. So it’s about for parents finding the right programs to watch but setting limits so that there are other activites that they are engaging in. Again it’s all about moderation.

How does it feel to be able to make really difference with your work?
It’s very rewarding. It’s so great to get up in the morning and work for an organization that you feel that its' heart has childrens education as the fundation and the guiding principal.

Is media is the best way to reach out to kids and young people?
I think that it’s a very important way to reach out to kids, kids spend more time today with media then they spend doing anything else except for sleeping, at least that’s the case in the USA. It’s such a powerful influence and it’s not going away so I think that what we have to do, is harness it so we can enhance and promote children’s education and really help them, interest them of beeing global citizens learning more about the world and more about the health. So, yes, I think it’s a really powerful way to engage young children.

NEWS ARCHIVE

PATTI MILLER HAS A HEART OF GOLD

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