Welcome to TotoLand: Middletown mom's YouTube storyland teaches kids about diversity
MIDDLETOWN – The first time her toddler daughter drew herself with yellow-colored skin, Rose Obare let it slide.
Obare's daughter, Auma, was about 2 years old when it happened in 2016.
It was an odd choice for her skin color; their family has brown skin. Auma is African American and Obare identifies as Luo, which is the tribe she descended from in Kenya.
Maybe the mismatched skin wasn't intentional.
But then Auma did it again.
Noticing a pattern, Obare decided they needed to have a gentle discussion about the color she chose.
“It would be really nice if the next time you draw yourself, you color yourself just like the way you look right here,'" Obare said, pointing to the back of her hand.
Auma was excited to show her mom her next drawing.
"I colored her brown, just like me!" Auma said.
But Obare couldn’t shake her unsettling feelings about the earlier drawings.
Why didn't my daughter see herself clearly?
Like many of today's children, Auma watched educational, kid-focused YouTube videos to pass the time. Perhaps the issue laid within a lack of Black and brown child characters on the platform, Obare thought.
Instead of waiting on someone else to solve the problem, she took matters into her own hands.
On June 22, Obare − now a mother of four, all under 10 − and her sister, Evaline Obare, launched their first full-length, animated children’s video on Youtube. Their premiere video that is available in English and Spanish is the first major step in accomplishing their mission of adding representation of diverse children and families online.
They named their business TotoLand: Nursery Rhymes & Kids Learning Songs − “Toto” meaning “kid” in their native language, Swahili. Their office is Rose’s living room in her Middletown apartment.
Starting from scratch
Bringing Obare's vision to life online was difficult at first.
Obare, a registered nurse, and her sister, a nurse practitioner, had no prior experience in content creation.
Obare partnered with a Turkish company for the animation and freelance music producers to create melodies and sing the songs using lyrics Obare and her children wrote together.
The first version of the main character, Ama Nibbles, had blue eyes, light brown skin, and straight reddish hair − attributes that did not jive with Obare's vision of the Kenyan character. She spent months revising the characters with animators for the first video.
Creating TotoLand City has been an expensive endeavor. The first video − "The Caring Song" − cost them about $16,000 and the music cost between $200 and $250.
Welcome to TotoLand, where there is 'more to me'
When children watch TotoLand videos, Obare wants them to learn to accept their differences. She wants them feel excited, and empowered, when they see their heritage reflected on screen.
"There's always something more to someone than your eyes can see. That's really big in TotoLand. We say, 'more to me.' So when you look at me, this is not all I am; There is more to me."
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TotoLand features five families, each with their own unique family dynamic and background. The primary family is the Nibbles, inspired by Obare's household.
Mrs. Nibbles splits her time between being a doctor and being with her family. Mr. Nibbles teaches preschool at Toto Elementary School. The Kenyan immigrants have four children.
Mr. Nibbles takes a fun, creative approach to teaching his students about their differences. His one rule: "Learning has no borders and no rules."
The amount of male preschool teachers has hovered around 3% or less since 1995, according to data from menteach.org and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Mr. Nibbles hopes to inspire more men to become preschool teachers, according to a character summary provided by Obare.
Ama, the star of the show, is a caring, daring, outgoing yet reserved, 4-year-old African American. Her free spirit and strong will are attributes that are uncommon in lead female nursery rhyme characters, Obare said.
Ama spends her time playing and singing with children in TotoLand's other four families. The fictional city's residents include a mixed-race family, a sporty and spunky 4-year-old girl, a single-mother household, and adults working in various careers.
Mrs. Spring, the matriarch of TotoLand's Spring family, serves in the military and is periodically deployed away from home. In 2020, women represented about 16% of enlisted U.S. military forces, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
In another TotoLand family, Mr. Winter, a Latino man, works in the local fire department. His occupation is also unique, given that only 13.1% of U.S. firefighters identify as Hispanic or Latino, according to 2020 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"The way I view TotoLand is like a mirror and a window," Obare said. "I say a mirror in the sense that when different kids look at TotoLand, I hope that they're able to see themselves. And (I say) a window because diversity and inclusion is not a spontaneous topic that just happens in households or at the dinner table. ... There has to be things that trigger that conversation and we want TotoLand to be one of those triggers."
Lana Bellamy covers Newburgh for the Times Herald-Record and USA Today Network. Reach her at lbellamy@th-record.com.
This article originally appeared on Times Herald-Record: Middletown mom's TotoLand videos teach kids about diversity on YouTube
