March 22, 2007 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Photograph courtesy of No Strings International
Johnie McGlade, an Irish humanitarian-aid worker, used to carry a puppet named Seamus into the conflict zones where he worked. While he started bringing it mainly to amuse his fellow relief workers, he discovered that when he toted Seamus around, “there was an instant impact with kids.”
So, four years ago, when Mr. McGlade met Michael Frith and Kathryn Mullen — who were part of the team that created the Muppets that appear on public television’s Sesame Street — they came up with a plan: Why not use puppets to teach children in war-torn or disaster-stricken regions important safety information?
The trio created a nonprofit group, No Strings International, that began by making a film to teach children in Afghanistan how to avoid getting killed or maimed by the land mines that dot much of the countryside after more than two decades of conflict. The film features a puppet, ChucheQhalin, a boy who is made out of carpets and must learn to steer clear of land mines before he can become a real boy.
No Strings, which maintains headquarters in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England, works with two Afghan groups — Aschiana, which helps children who beg or work in the streets, and the Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation — to show the film. Shot in English in the United States but dubbed into the Afghan languages of Pashto and Dari, the film is often displayed on a mobile screen that is transported in a motorbike sidecar.
“The kids absolutely love it,” Mr. McGlade says. “They’ve never seen anything like it.”
After the film, the children ask questions that are answered by local coordinators using “live” puppets.
No Strings — which had revenue of $100,000 in 2006, about 45 percent from foundations and the rest from other private sources — is now working on other films, including one to teach children in Sri Lanka how to find safety during tsunamis.
Here, Mr. Frith and Ms. Mullen use puppets to teach children in Herat, Afghanistan, about the dangers of land mines.
