Also in the plans for both Meena and Sara is the merchandising of products. In Bangladesh Meena textiles, ceramics, dolls, writing products and greeting cards are already being pilot marketed and educational games are planned. Such products have the potential to extend the reach of Sara and Meena images and messages. They also may have a role in fund raising, thereby sustaining the projects, for it is recognized that changing the societal position and view of female children is a long-term endeavor.

A First Step
Broadcast or video viewing is important in developing awareness and knowledge as a first step to behavioral change information is provided and awareness enhanced. We can also motivate people through entertaining Program formats. However, in the Meena and Sara episodes, an attempt has been made to address all behavioral change factors. The episodes are informative and motivational, through entertaining stories which are based on careful research into traditional and modern values. But they also address the life skills and enabling environment factors which are so often omitted change behavior or bring in children.

Finally, both initiatives have involved a great deal of capacity building. The design of the Meena character, character models, backgrounds, storyboards and post production has all been undertaken in South Asia under the supervision of Ram Mohan of Light Box Moving Pictures, Bombay. Light Box has also produced some of the episodes from start to finish-h although Hanna Barbera Manila-based studio, Fil Cartoons has produced the bulk of the animation to date. South Asian artists and researchers have increased their skills through their involvement.

Ram Mohan and the others of the South Asian team -- Mira Aghi, the chief researcher in New Delhi; Rachel Carnegie, Meena's main creative force and former coordinator; Nuzhat Shahzadi, researcher and trainer-disseminator based in Bangladesh -- have all contributed to the training of African artists, writers and researchers in the Sara project. And such capacity building remains a major goal of both projects.

The Meena and Sara initiatives are two visible bright stars in the African and South Asian girls' otherwise troubled night sky. They demonstrate how animated film can become a force for social transformation.

A depiction of the South African picturesque landscape. © UNICEF

Neil McKee is the Senior Program Communication Officer for UNICEF's Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office based in Nairobi, Kenya. He is the author of Social Mobilization and Social Marketing in Developing Communities.

Christian Clark, former Information Officer in UNICEF Somalia, is now the Meena Project Coordinator for UNICEF in Katmandu, Nepal.