A Chance Encounter Leads to a Shared Passion for Helping Others  

The year was 2015. At the peak of the Syrian refugee crisis, with thousands making the dangerous trek to Germany and Europe, Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) Exchange Alumni Sarah Sexton was on her international exchange program, teaching in Hamburg, Germany.  

“While I was there, I remember reading an article with a quote from Angela Merkel saying that Germany had once been a place that refugees had fled and now refuges are coming to Germany as a place of hope and opportunity,” says Sarah. “That really resonated with me.”  

This was Sarah’s third time in Germany. When she was just nine months old, her family had moved to the country for her father’s work, and she would remain there until the age of 12. She returned in her undergraduate years as a press office intern at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin in 2013. But it was during her Fulbright ETA in 2015, witnessing the history of the Syrian refugee crisis unfold, that changed the path she thought she’d take.  

Fulbright ETAs teach for 12 hours a week; the rest of the time, they’re encouraged to get locally involved. For Sarah, that extra time meant joining a gospel choir and volunteering at the German-American Institute (GAI), a bi-cultural center that was hosting an American Center, which was how she got involved in launching and teaching the English Access Microscholarship Program in Hamburg- and met several refugees and migrants, who were participating in the program.  

“Working with those students really sparked my interest in refugee response work,” she says. “I had already been interested in education, doing the English Teaching Assistantship, but now that mission of offering hope and opportunity for families who fled their homes became what I wanted to do with the rest of my career.”  

 That work led to her eventual position as the Senior Manager of Advocacy and Communications for Humanitarian Programs at Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind Sesame Street with a mission of “helping children everywhere grow smarter, stronger, and kinder.” In her role, Sarah supports Sesame Workshop’s programs reaching children affected by the Syrian and Rohingya refugee crises and advocates for increased investment in early childhood development in humanitarian settings globally.  

 A big part of helping children grow kinder is modeling, she says. The Sesame Workshop programs she works with – Play to Learn and Ahlan Simsim (“Welcome Sesame” in Arabic) – do just that. When asked about how, Sarah lights up and talks about her favorite characters on Ahlan Simsim, the award-winning locally produced Arabic-language version of Sesame Street airing across the Middle East and North Africa. The cast includes - but is not limited to – Jad, Basma, and Ma’zooza, a baby goat who eats everything round  just like Sesame Street’s ’s Cookie Monster,.  

“Kids relate to these characters and see themselves reflected on screen,” Sarah says. “Jad’s a yellow Muppet. He’s quite shy and very artistic. He’s new to the Ahlan Simsim neighborhood, just moved there, and it’s hard to make friends when you’re a little bit shy, but he meets Basma, who’s a purple girl Muppet. She’s gregarious, she likes to sing - she’s a born performer, and they become fast friends and go on adventures together. And that’s intended to model the spirit of welcoming newcomers into a community and celebrating our differences. Oftentimes, Basma will jump into an adventure without thinking it through first, where Jad is the planner, and will make sure they have a plan for their day’s activities. So it’s really celebrating what we can bring to the table and [how we] benefit from one another.”  

The Ahlan Simsim initiative is a partnership with the International Rescue Committee and independent evaluators at NYU Global TIES for Children that was made possible by the MacArthur Foundation’s inaugural 100&Change Award in 2017 with $100 million to bring critical early learning and nurturing care to Syrian refugee children. This investment It was followed by a matching grant in 2018 by the LEGO Foundation to launch the Play to Learn program, which supports  Rohingya refugee children in Bangladesh and expands the impact of the Ahlan Simsim program in the Middle East.  

Building on Ahlan Simsim and Play to Learn, Sesame Workshop has also expanded its work to support children affected by conflict and crisis globally through the Welcome Sesame initiative reaching children across the Middle East, Latin America, East Africa, and most recently Afghanistan and Ukraine.  

Language Access as a Way Forward

Sarah was not only inspired by the words of Germany’s former chancellor during her international exchange. She was also influenced by one of her students in the English Access Microscholarship Program -- a refugee twice over from Afghanistan, whose upward trajectory Sarah has followed in the years since.  

Zahra Yaqubi, an English Access Microscholarship Program ExchangeAlumni, had left two homes by the time her family made it to Germany. Her family fled Afghanistan in 1998, when the Taliban took over the city of Mazar-e-Sharif and started killing most of the Hazara people.   

“The main reason[s] why we left our home country are several: first, we belong to a minority group called Hazara,” Zahra says. “They were killing most of the Hazara people and arrested my grandfather while the rest of the family escaped the city.”  

The family escaped through Pakistan and made it to Iran, where they remained until 2014 only to go on the move again, this time bound for Germany. This is

where, at the age of 15 and alone, Zahra enrolled in the English Access Microscholarship Program and met Sarah.  

“The English Access Program taught me to believe in my strengths and do my best until my dreams are no longer a dream, and this is what made me the person who I am today,” Zahra says. “It’s a great opportunity to learn a lot, to experience a lot, and to bloom.”  

Inspired by the German doctor who was volunteering in the Morea refugee camp in Lesvos, Greece and who healed her ankle that was injured during Zahra’s crossing from Turkey to Greece, Zahra finished her initial schooling in 2019 and then  volunteered in Greece as a medic with Medical Volunteers International. Then, in 2022, she co-founded No Border Medics to support refugees in Calais and Dunkerque in France. Zahra is also now studying to become a doctor herself to bring healthcare to people despite borders.  

  “Someone like Zahra, who had to flee home and come to a new place, what she wants to do most is help others like herself and her new community by providing healthcare,” says Sarah. “And I think that’s incredible.”  

It’s clear from the work of both ExchangeAlumni that 2015 was a fateful year, one that continues to shape the trajectory of the humanitarian advocate and the soon-to-be doctor of medicine.