“Iftah ya sim sim abwabak nahnou al atfal
Iftah wa istaqbel As-habak nahnou al atfal..”
(Open sesame your doors, we are the children
Open and welcome us, your friends, we are the children.)
It is the song that every Arab child of the 1980s knows by heart. The opening words that meant it was time for Iftah Ya Sim Sim, the local adaptation of television’s Sesame Street, literally translated as “open sesame.”
“Everyone remembers the opening song, it is unforgettable,” says Noura Al Noman, an Emirati children’s and young adult author.
It began with a catchy “la la la”, sung by a choir of children and set against scenes of children from across the Arab world running past familiar landmarks like the Pyramids and deserts, twirling and jumping around playgrounds and down ancient alley ways before running towards a white fort whose gates are open to let them into a new world, a new episode of Iftah Ya Sim Sim.
Those who watched the programme in its heyday are now adults, with families and children of their own. But Iftar Ya Sim Sim is no longer just a nostalgic memory, with plans now well advanced to bring it back to our screens,
Two years ago, the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States and Sesame Workshop, the US production company behind the original, signed a memorandum of understanding in Riyadh to relaunch the Arabic brand for a new generation of children.
This 2013, Bidaya (Arabic for beginning) was set up at TwoFour54, Abu Dhabi’s media and creative hub, with its inaugural project the Iftah Ya Simsim Educational Initiative, sponsored by Mubadala Development Company.
The initiative is seeking local talent to help relaunch the old series w with a new vision and content suitable for children of today.
“It is a huge challenge, but it is an amazing project and honour to be able to bring back something as powerful and wonderful as Iftah Ya Sim Sim,” says Abdulla Al Sharhan, the creator of the Emirati character and cartoon Hamdoon, who these days is the creative director working with Bidaya on the relaunch of the beloved old series.
Still in its initial stages, there are workshops being held about muppetering — as the art of working with muppets like the Cookie Monster is called —, how to balance educational and entrainment content, and how to bring out the best from the old and introduce new concepts and characters.
“I love Cookie Monster, I used to wonder where all the cookies went when he ate them,” says the 32 year old Emirati. “Honestly, the series had real character. It was amazing. The whole family would sit and enjoy it together.”
Iftah Ya Sim Sim mark 2 is also supported by an educational advisory council made up of education experts and media professionals. The new series will also tackle new media formats besides TV, and may include important Arab talents and figures as guests on the show.
“We are looking at how to bring up today’s issues, like say, healthy eating or dieting, through its characters, where the child is learning through the interaction,” says Al Sharhan, who has three young children to test some of the new contents to see their reaction “Science and learning will be fun again”, he promises.
Even 30 years ago, Iftah Ya Sim Sim was much more than a dubbed version of Sesame Street. The rights to make an Arabic version were bought for over US4 2.5 million dollars by the Gulf Cooperation Council Joint Program Production Institution, who brought in experts to introduce an all encompassing Arabic curriculum that would teach and cultivate Arab values and culture.
Favourite characters like Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie, Grover, and Kermit were recast Arabic names, becoming Kaaki, Bader and Anees, Gharghour, and Kamil and now speaking modern classic Arabic. There were also new muppets and segments taped and created for by Arabs for Arabs.
They included a camel known as Nu’man, a green and yellow parrot, Malsun, along with Yaqut, a lavender-coloured monster with a long nose a, and a purple full bodied cat wearing ribbons called Abla. Original segments were taped relating to heritage, like wedding rituals of indifferent countries plus poem and songs. Much of the show took place on a set designed as an intricately traditional Arabian neighbourhood called “Sharee Eshreen” or 20th Street.
In all, over 130 episodes were made, each over 40 minutes long. Critics hailed it as one of the most successful pan-Arab collaborations of educators, creators, writers and artists from the Middle East. First broadcast in 1979 and taped in Kuwait, it was shown across the Middle East and North Africa until 1990 until the first Gulf War brought it to a premature end.
Such was its popularity that it is said the Iraq invaders stormed the set of Sharee Eshreen, taking away not just videos of the show but some of the muppet costumers as prisons of war. It is said that the Nu’man costume, as well as Cookie Monster were never found or returned to Kuwait.
To this day, just mentioning the show triggers nostalgia in its fans, some of whom watched reruns on TV well into the 1990s.
“There was something special about the show. It was really well done where both the children and their parents could watch and enjoy,” says Mrs Al Noman. It may have been decades since she last saw any of the episodes, but to this day,
whenever she thinks of the Arabic alphabet, she remembers the “Alphabet song” from the show. “When I try to remember the place of an Arabic letter, I sing the alphabet song from Iftah Ya Sim Sim inside my head and recall the location,” she says.
Her favourite character was Count Dracula, who kept his distinctive laugh and accent when dubbed into Arabic.“He had a funny accent and made numbers sound interesting. We needed that then, and we need something like this today,” she says.
More localised productions were also made including inEgypt where it was known as Alam Simsim (Sesame World), Jordan (Hikayat Simsim or Sesame Tales) and Palestine (Shara’a Simsim or Sesame Street) Nothing though, could compare with the extent and quality of the original pan-Arab production that saw Khaleeji actors, as well as some from Syrian and Iraqi playing characters on the show with child guests who would come after school to take part in taping.
One of the biggest focuses on the new Iftah Ya Sim Sim, will be rekindling the Arabic language. For Al Sharhan, this could not come at a better time. “We are losing our language, and so through Iftah Ya Sim Sim, we can revive the language in such a way that a child learns proper Arabic in a fun way,” he says.
Pausing, Al Sharhan makes a quick call, saying it was one he forgot to make earlier in the day.
And Elmo picks up.
“Hello! Yes Elmo wants to talk to you, yes you ...” says a very bubbly giggly red Elmo on the screen of the iPhone. “This is an example of how far technology has gone where one call their favourite characters,” laughs Al Sharhan.
Meanwhile, fans of the show, now grown up, have their ideas about what should be kept from the original.
“I would just enhance the old music. I wouldn’t dare change the original song, just make it sound better,” says Taha Al Ajami, Emirati musician, who has been approached to creating music for the show.
Now 35, he recalls rushing home as a child to finish his homework in time for the “cartoon hour” after 3:30pm, when every child in the UAE would tune into the must-see one channel that featured shows like Iftah Ya Sim Sim as well as dubbed Japanese anime and classics like Tom and Jerry.
“If you overslept during your afternoon nap, you missed your cartoon hour. So in many ways, we cherished it more than say today’s children who have 24 hour cartoons broadcast on TV,” he explains.
Al Ajami has an entire DVD collection of the show, and still loves to re-watch as an adult.
“There has been nothing like that show since then,” he insists. “Nothing produced on that quality and that level for Arab children. I am so glad it is now happening again and new generation of children will get a chance to enjoy, to dream and imagine like we did,” he said.
RGhazal@thenational.ae
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: Klipit
Started: 2022
Founders: Venkat Reddy, Mohammed Al Bulooki, Bilal Merchant, Asif Ahmed, Ovais Merchant
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Digital receipts, finance, blockchain
Funding: $4 million
Investors: Privately/self-funded
Ain Dubai in numbers
126: The length in metres of the legs supporting the structure
1 football pitch: The length of each permanent spoke is longer than a professional soccer pitch
16 A380 Airbuses: The equivalent weight of the wheel rim.
9,000 tonnes: The amount of steel used to construct the project.
5 tonnes: The weight of each permanent spoke that is holding the wheel rim in place
192: The amount of cable wires used to create the wheel. They measure a distance of 2,4000km in total, the equivalent of the distance between Dubai and Cairo.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
PSA DUBAI WORLD SERIES FINALS LINE-UP
Men’s:
Mohamed El Shorbagy (EGY)
Ali Farag (EGY)
Simon Rosner (GER)
Tarek Momen (EGY)
Miguel Angel Rodriguez (COL)
Gregory Gaultier (FRA)
Karim Abdel Gawad (EGY)
Nick Matthew (ENG)
Women's:
Nour El Sherbini (EGY)
Raneem El Welily (EGY)
Nour El Tayeb (EGY)
Laura Massaro (ENG)
Joelle King (NZE)
Camille Serme (FRA)
Nouran Gohar (EGY)
Sarah-Jane Perry (ENG)
RESULTS
5pm Wathba Stallions Cup Maiden (PA) Dh70,000 (Dirt) 1,400m
Winner Munfared, Fernando Jara (jockey), Ahmed Al Mehairbi (trainer)
5.30pm Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner Sawt Assalam, Szczepan Mazur, Ibrahim Al Hadhrami
6pm Maiden (PA) Dh70,000 (D) 1,800m
Winner Dergham Athbah, Pat Dobbs, Mohamed Daggash
6.30pm Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (D) 1,800m
Winner Rajee, Fernando Jara, Majed Al Jahouri
7pm Conditions (PA) Dh80,000 (D) 1,800m
Winner Kerless Del Roc, Fernando Jara, Ahmed Al Mehairbi
7.30pm Handicap (TB) Dh70,000 (D) 2,000m
Winner Pharoah King, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson
8pm Conditions (PA) Dh85,000 (D) 2,000m
Winner Sauternes Al Maury, Dane O’Neill, Doug Watson
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Haltia.ai
Started: 2023
Co-founders: Arto Bendiken and Talal Thabet
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: AI
Number of employees: 41
Funding: About $1.7 million
Investors: Self, family and friends
A QUIET PLACE
Starring: Lupita Nyong'o, Joseph Quinn, Djimon Hounsou
Director: Michael Sarnoski
Rating: 4/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: Dresos
Started: September 2020
Founders: Vladimir Radojevic and Aleksandar Jankovic
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Fashion
Funding: $285,000; $500,000 currently being raised
Investors: Crowdfunding, family, friends and self-funding
Ticket prices
General admission Dh295 (under-three free)
Buy a four-person Family & Friends ticket and pay for only three tickets, so the fourth family member is free
Buy tickets at: wbworldabudhabi.com/en/tickets
Four motivational quotes from Alicia's Dubai talk
“The only thing we need is to know that we have faith. Faith and hope in our own dreams. The belief that, when we keep going we’re going to find our way. That’s all we got.”
“Sometimes we try so hard to keep things inside. We try so hard to pretend it’s not really bothering us. In some ways, that hurts us more. You don’t realise how dishonest you are with yourself sometimes, but I realised that if I spoke it, I could let it go.”
“One good thing is to know you’re not the only one going through it. You’re not the only one trying to find your way, trying to find yourself, trying to find amazing energy, trying to find a light. Show all of yourself. Show every nuance. All of your magic. All of your colours. Be true to that. You can be unafraid.”
“It’s time to stop holding back. It’s time to do it on your terms. It’s time to shine in the most unbelievable way. It’s time to let go of negativity and find your tribe, find those people that lift you up, because everybody else is just in your way.”
Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
Three ways to get a gratitude glow
By committing to at least one of these daily, you can bring more gratitude into your life, says Ong.
- During your morning skincare routine, name five things you are thankful for about yourself.
- As you finish your skincare routine, look yourself in the eye and speak an affirmation, such as: “I am grateful for every part of me, including my ability to take care of my skin.”
- In the evening, take some deep breaths, notice how your skin feels, and listen for what your skin is grateful for.
In-demand jobs and monthly salaries
- Technology expert in robotics and automation: Dh20,000 to Dh40,000
- Energy engineer: Dh25,000 to Dh30,000
- Production engineer: Dh30,000 to Dh40,000
- Data-driven supply chain management professional: Dh30,000 to Dh50,000
- HR leader: Dh40,000 to Dh60,000
- Engineering leader: Dh30,000 to Dh55,000
- Project manager: Dh55,000 to Dh65,000
- Senior reservoir engineer: Dh40,000 to Dh55,000
- Senior drilling engineer: Dh38,000 to Dh46,000
- Senior process engineer: Dh28,000 to Dh38,000
- Senior maintenance engineer: Dh22,000 to Dh34,000
- Field engineer: Dh6,500 to Dh7,500
- Field supervisor: Dh9,000 to Dh12,000
- Field operator: Dh5,000 to Dh7,000
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