Sibling Superheroes help Somali children stop the spread of COVID-19 in their communities
Reaching children during the COVID-19 pandemic has been paramount to preventative, mitigation of the disease, and supporting children’s social-emotional health.
The Somali Response Innovation Lab (SomRIL), hosted by World Vision Somali, works with education-entertainment innovators Poet Nation Media to expand their early childhood education program called Geedka Mooska. Together, the SomRIL developed a segment called Hiddo & Hirsi – the Protector Twins. These twins envision themselves as superheroes protecting their community from the Coronavirus and show how they deal with the challenges of closed school, psycho-social and mental health awareness, gender inclusivity and handicap representation, and much more! The stories creatively weave together Somali folktales and proverbs and give them a fresh spin in light of current challenges.
The Hiddo & Hirsi educational videos are the first series of its kind for Somali-speaking children. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many disruptions in the region, which Geedka Mooska seeks to address. The topics covered in each episode incorporate priorities from the Ministry of Health and Education and Protection clusters for Somalia and feedback from children who viewed the early episodes.
These videos are approved by the Ministry of Health in Somalia, included in the official COVID-19 repository under the RCCE (Risk Communication and Community Engagement) UN-backed task force. They are being shared across social media by many partnering organizations, including donors like DFAT and USAID, various UN agencies, and the NGO partners, such as Oxfam, Care, ACF, ADRA, DRC, and Coopi. The program is even broadcasted on television in a public-private partnership with Star TV Somalia and nominated for an award for Animation Production by the Kalasha International Film & TV Festival and Market.
“Children love the series! They relate to the series. It resonates with them. They get important lessons from them, and they actually practice what they see the heroes in the series do.”
Building off the success of the Hiddo & Hirsi series in Somalia, World Vision Yemen is working with Response Innovation Lab to translate and contextualize some of the videos for the Yemeni context and launching the series as Leila & Latif, across Yemen with Save the Children, Oxfam, and other partners.
>>> Click to see the Hiddo & Hirsi videos (Somalia / Yemen)
>>> Click to learn more about the innovator
>>> Click to see behind the scene of the Hiddo & Hirsi production