Muppets teach children a land mine lesson

[Kire]

Muppets teach children a land mine lesson

By Rachel Morarjee, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor Thu Oct 5, 5:00 AM ET

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - "Bang!" The little puppet boy steps on a mine, and now he only has one leg. The Afghan children watching the video at a school on a Kabul hillside gasp.

Puppets have long been used to entertain and to teach children basic lessons such as how to count and the letters of the alphabet.

Now in Afghanistan the creators of Muppet stars Miss Piggy and Fozzy Bear have teamed up with two charities to teach children a lesson in survival: how not to get killed or maimed by the millions of land mines still buried in the Afghan soil.

"The Story of the Little Carpet Boy," loosely based on Pinocchio, is the brainchild of No Strings International, a British charity set up to reach children in war-torn areas and teach them vital life lessons through puppetry.

"It's hard to get a crowd of children to listen to an adult, but the minute you bring a puppet out, kids just light up," says Johnie McGlade, founder of No Strings.

More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20061005/ts_csm/cmuppets

[Deja Q]

1. Pity they didn't use Elmo as the puppet tapdancing on the landmines...

:hide:

[hpot]

7. lol

:nuke:

[noshenanigans]

2. Wow..

Can you imagine if they had to teach those sort of lessons in the U.S.? People flipped out when they simply wanted to air that UNICEF ad that rightly pointed out how differently people would feel if things like that happened here (the one at the soccer game, and one of the players hit a land mine).

[DeepModem Mom]

3. This is a great article -- although sad the children...

have to be taught such things.

K&R!

[shain from kane]

4. They're being conditioned to accept puppets there. Mayor of Kabul

qualifies. Big time.

[bumponalog]

5. Lesson number one:

Watch out for this guy:

[Kire]

6. ROFLMAO

wow