Screenshot from 'Listen to Granny' (Blood Tribe Communications on YouTube)

By Justin Goulet

Using puppets to teach kids about COVID-19 safety

Oct 21, 2020 | 9:35 AM

STANDOFF, AB – The Blood Tribe has teamed up with a puppeteer to educate children on COVID-19.

The Blood Tribe’s communications department is working with DerRic Starlight and his Indigenous puppets – affectionately called ‘Nuppets’ – on videos for children and the community, raising awareness on the novel coronavirus pandemic and safety measures in place to reduce the spread of the virus.

“Some of our emergency management team members for the Blood Reserve were really concerned with the COVID-19 fatigue, or really the message fatigue,” said Pam Blood, Communications & Community Engagement Director for the Blood Tribe.

“There was a lot of repetition on the messaging that some were deeming was not as effective as before. We were seeing the majority of our population, our Blood Reserve residents, were following regulations such as the curfew and travel restrictions, but we really had to explore looking beyond our [COVID-19] public notices and alerts.”

She said Blood Tribe officials raised concerns of some people tuning out the safety messaging around the pandemic.

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“We went to some communications consultants and we were pretty well informed that this was an issue everyone was feeling, and that concern was coming up everywhere,” Blood told Lethbridge News Now.

She said the communications team got together to brainstorm different ways to spread the message of being safe during the pandemic, with a particular focus on school-aged children.

“At the time, there were some concerns on re-entry plans going back to school and we needed to acknowledge that our children were needing to abide by the safety rules regarding COVID-19 while they were actually away from parents,” Blood explained.

She said the whole production and idea to produce the videos was a team effort from members of the Blood Reserve, with help from puppeteer DerRic Starlight.

“When we had developed that strategy to speak towards kids, Sesame Street kind of popped into our heads,” Blood said, adding that Starlight’s mother is from the Blood Reserve.

“We kind of put the idea into his (Starlight) head and right away he jumped on board. He was more than willing to help us out with the script development [and] how to do all the production.”

Blood added that Starlight has been able to bring his own ideas, perspective and expertise to the table, to help bring the videos to life.

The ‘Nuppets’ featured in the videos are: Granny, Wind Dancer, Mean Girl, Great Warrior, Baloney Chef, Mr. Smart Stuff and Little Bo.

The first video, ‘Listen to Granny’, can be seen below, with future videos to be released as one-minute public service announcements on local television stations. Full-length three-to-four minute videos will be posted online on the Blood Tribe’s website.