Girl Talk: Sesame Street's Foray into Menstrual Hygiene Management Education

Summary:

Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organization behind the popular U.S.-based show Sesame Street, has seven years of history and impact in the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) education space. Recently, with generous support from Dubai Cares, the Workshop leveraged its WASH UP! program, which targets children ages 5-9 years in low-resource and primarily rural communities around the world, to address menstrual hygiene management (MHM) challenges faced by adolescent girls ages 10-14 years in rural Zimbabwe. Working with MHM experts and implementation partner World Vision, Sesame Workshop designed an MHM education and behavior change program for implementation in public schools in 6 provinces throughout Zimbabwe. The program, called Girl Talk, was piloted in 2018 and scaled up to 150 schools in 2019. In addition to sharing the positive and promising results from the program evaluation, this presentation will delve into Sesame Workshop's program and content development processes, the project's formative research findings and subsequent program adjustments, and the many challenges and opportunities we encountered over the course of the two-year program. In particular, we will consider how Girl Talk demonstrates the potential for multimedia MHM programming to positively influence adolescent girls' schooling experiences, how the program withstood a series of contextual challenges ranging from a coup to a cyclone, and how thoughtfully engaging other stakeholders adolescent boys, educators, and parents is critical for achieving the potential of programs targeting adolescent girls. Importantly, we will suggest key criteria for developing and delivering an impactful program.

Background/Objectives

Sesame Workshop has collaborated with World Vision on WASH education and behavior change programming for four years and in 13 countries. The Girl Talk program aimed to leverage the strength of the partnership model to address the enormous impact of the onset of menstruation on adolescent girls' ability to continue participating fully in schooling in rural Zimbabwe. Specific program outcomes were developed and measured for participating girls' knowledge about puberty and menstruation, attitudes about menstruation, and self-reported behaviors related to menstrual hygiene management (MHM), and a third-party evaluator assessed program impact.

Description Of Intervention And/or Methods/Design

Girl Talk is a Sesame Workshop-designed, school-based intervention that strives to achieve a range of knowledge and behavioral outcomes around menstrual hygiene management (MHM), sanitation and hygiene, and girls' empowerment among adolescent children in low-resource contexts in sub-Saharan Africa. The program utilizes a set of original multimedia educational materials over a ten-session program. Sessions cover a range of topics, including puberty, menstruation and the menstrual cycle, reusable pad making, girls' empowerment, and peer support. The materials include animations, workbooks with comics, and games, all featuring Sesame Muppets and their friends. Public school teachers trained on Girl Talk facilitate the sessions. Girls and boys ages 10-14 years participate in the program, though boys only attend half of the program sessions. During each session, teachers guide participating children through a series of learner-centered activities that are described in detail in a teacher training manual.

Results/Lessons Learned

An independent evaluator found that Girl Talk had an effect size of 0.978 for change in knowledge on puberty and menstruation, an effect size of 0.676 on measures around myths related to menstruation, and an effect size of 0.608 for change in practical knowledge about the menstrual cycle. In addition to the promising program results, Sesame Workshop has identified areas for program improvement, including additional messaging around the relationships between good WASH behaviors and menstrual hygiene management (MHM), continued exploration of the best methods for involving adolescent boys in the program, and possible mechanisms for parental engagement and advocacy.

Discussion/Implications For The Field

Sesame Workshop's Girl Talk program experience demonstrates the ability of multimedia education and behavior change programs to positively influence adolescent girls' outcomes related to menstrual hygiene management (MHM). The potential impact of such programs is far-reaching. Building girls' capacity to effectively manage menstruation may increase their ability to continue their education into and through secondary school. In turn, girls' education is significantly related to a variety of other outcomes, including those related to the individual (e.g. age of marriage, HIV knowledge), to the family (e.g. family planning, total household income), and to the community (e.g. population growth, climate change).

Abstract submitted by:

Kim Foulds - Sesame Workshop

Abigail Bucuvalas - Sesame Workshop

Alyson Moskowitz - Sesame Workshop