I first heard about the persecuted Rohingya community in 2018 when the UNHCR invited me to a documentary screening of I am Rohingya, featuring the harrowing stories of Muslim children in Canada whose families had fled from genocide in Myanmar. These kids were born in refugee camps in Bangladesh – the youngest eight-years-old at the time of filming and the oldest, an inspiring 20-year-old who has devoted his life to advocating for human rights, a weight that not many youth in the western context have to bear.

When meeting them, I had just completed my programme in Children's Media in Toronto, pivoting in my career after a decade of developing communications strategies for government and international development agencies around the world. Why? Because, I had and still have profound conviction that the stories we tell our kids will significantly impact the ways in which they show up for each other as human beings, ten, twenty, fifty years from now, irrespective of their backgrounds.

It is with this conviction that I put a lot of hope in the media industry to look beyond our North American borders, to find the courage to both serve and amplify the voices of kids whose circumstances deserve to be seen and validated in the spirit of global citizenship. 

So, I was in deep awe to learn two years ago that Sesame Workshop, which is of course, the benchmark to which all of us in the industry aspire, had taken on the challenge of creating Rohingya characters and stories with support from the Lego Foundation. And, it was on my bucket list to visit them to learn more about their social justice work as inspiration for my own journey as a Muslim storyteller with a family history of displacement.

Sesame's Rohingya muppets, Noor and Aziz, set a precedent for representing 36.5 million children that make up 40% of the world population of displaced people, according to the UNHCR. They are curious, imaginative problem solvers like all other six-year-olds, but their narratives aim to address trauma and provide tools for rehabilitation through play-based learning.

Wandering in the historic halls of 1900 Broadway last week, I had the honour of finding Louis Mitchell, the legend who helped design twins Noor and Aziz, in addition to the rest of Sesame's muppet cast, including his favourite, the Cookie Monster! Louis' presence and heart is apparent in his devotion to his craft and the audiences he serves. To conceive of a single character, he creates their entire family, even pets, because perhaps we see ourselves best reflected through the eyes of those who surround us with love and a sense of belonging.

To belong - isn't that what every child wants and deserves? Dubbed in 13 languages, Sesame's 140 episodes of the Watch, Play, Learn humanitarian initiative incorporate culturally sensitive, grassroots research from crisis-affected regions to provide early childhood development lessons that range from identity and self-regulation, to geometry and even water and land safety.

To Memo, Katie, Daniel, and the incredible production team who generously shared of their time and passion, but more importantly, who encouraged me to pursue the stories that are important to me, I am forever indebted. This is a team that's showing up for society's most vulnerable by raising awareness of underserved communities to whom we are all accountable.

As a Pakistani-Canadian Muslim, I am ashamed of how little awareness I had of the Rohingya genocide until a few years ago. As a children's media producer, I am grateful to Sesame for taking on the type of work that some would consider a risk in today's increasingly commercial media industry. But, that's why we love them – for reminding us all of our agency in leaving the world a little bit better than how we found it.

A big thanks to all of the friends at Sesame who helped make this milestone visit happen at the cusp of my new storytelling chapter! To learn more about my upcoming journey traveling across Pakistan to discover and share stories from underserved communities, follow me at: narmeen.lakhani7 on Instagram and @muslimsinaminute on TikTok.