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Mercy Corps has teamed with Sesame Workshop to integrate Elmo, Cookie Monster, and other Sesame Street characters into the emotional recovery work the organisation is doing with children in Haiti.

Mercy Corps and Sesame Workshop have formed a partnership to bring engaging, educational programming to Haiti’s children. Sesame Workshop has dubbed one DVD featuring two Sesame Home Videos into Creole, and produced three short original films shot in Haiti specific to the country’s post-earthquake challenges. Mercy Corps has distributed at least 1,000 DVDs of this programming to schools, orphanages and other child-friendly facilities in the country.

Accompanying the DVD releases are three live action films created by Sesame Workshop and the filmmaker Linda Costigan after the earthquake. The films, built around original footage shot in Haiti in partnership with a local production team, promote cooperation, self-esteem, creativity and hope. “Helping Hands” features children helping each other and adults in such activities as preparing food and pitching a tent; “I Am Haiti” reinforces the message that children will be key to Haiti’s recovery; and “Recycled Car” uses a metaphor of two young boys building a toy car to suggest that Haitians will build their country anew.

The films were also integrated into Mercy Corps’ Comfort for Kids program, which trains parents and other caregivers to help children emotionally recover from the earthquake. Comfort for Kids is a key component of the Mercy Corps Haiti youth program which combines training for caregivers, workbooks for adults and children, open-air film events, as well as arts and sports-based youth development activities.