I am excited to share with you an inspiring exchange I've recently held with Heidi Rosbe, the recently appointed CEO of Our Generation Speaks (OGS) and an accomplished leader in international development, education and peacebuilding. She previously spent over six years at the International Rescue Committee, where she played various leadership roles with the Ahlan Simsim initiative of Sesame Workshop, reaching more than 4 million children in the MENA region with critical early childhood development programs. Prior to IRC, she was Deputy Executive Director at Encounter, focusing on cultivating constructive leadership on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With expertise in program design, systems strengthening, and strategic partnerships, Heidi holds a Master's in International Affairs and is a trained mediator.
In our interview, Heidi shares valuable insights from her six-year journey with the innovative Ahlan Simsim initiative. I enjoyed listening to her, as she articulated a nuanced distinction between systems change and systems strengthening, illustrated through concrete examples of embedding early childhood programs within government ministries in Iraq and Jordan. Heidi emphasizes the importance of true partnerships built on equity and collaboration rather than top-down approaches, revealing how her team surpassed their initial goal of reaching 1.5 million children to ultimately impact over 4 million. She also reflects candidly on her leadership philosophy, highlighting the strength in collaborative listening and the courage to acknowledge when expertise lies with team members.
Dear Heidi, thank you for joining this exchange! First, I'd love to hear about your journey in the education space. What drew you to this field initially? Was there a pivotal moment that inspired you to work in education, and what kept you there? Also, given your current situation, I'm curious about what's prompting your transition away from this field.
My career has spanned many different sectors. When I think about the through line, it's ultimately all about supporting human resilience. That's what I've realized is the headline.
For me, education is part of that. Early childhood development is part of that. I've done work in youth empowerment, peace-building, cross-cultural education, and peace education spaces. So all these things are really connected. I've also done a lot of dialogue work.
The project I've been working on for the past six and a half years has focused on early childhood development, spanning across early education, health, and nutrition. Now I'm moving to an organization doing peace-building through entrepreneurship and leadership development for young adults. To me, these are actually all connected, they're entering this space from different angles. We can't do any of this work without education as a through line, or without human connections. They all have this central hub of boosting human resilience.
I came to this space initially after college. One of my first full-time jobs was through AmeriCorps, a program in the United States where we were placed in fledgling nonprofits doing social justice work or social services. I worked at an organization supporting Arab immigrants to the US. During the four years I was there (staying on past the initial fellowship year), I started a tutoring program for young immigrant children, ran an after-school program, started a summer camp where kids played games but also learned English, and launched adult education for English language learners. I was also learning how to manage staff and navigate being a young professional.
All these different experiences led me to where I am today, including work in the Middle East and with dialogue programs. I went to graduate school studying human rights, conflict resolution, and gender policy. These experiences combined led me to spend the past six years working with the International Rescue Committee on the Ahlan Simsim initiative in partnership with Sesame Workshop, which was fantastic because it enabled me to work with an incredible team of people from various backgrounds—early childhood development experts, partnership specialists, ed tech professionals, and more.
What we accomplished over the last six and a half years is something really special. We developed impactful program models that can be integrated into other sector work because early childhood development isn't specific to just one sector. We also embedded these programs into government ministry services, which means they'll sustain long term. This relates to the questions you're asking about system strengthening and systems change. The work really has a little bit of everything in it.
That's a great transition to my next question. From your experience and your deep programmatic insights into embedding education initiatives within existing systems, what's your view on the current trend of "systems change" that everyone seems to be talking about? What does it really entail in practice? I'm curious about your concrete experiences – what approaches have you found work, and what doesn't?
It's interesting how "systems change" has become the buzzword everyone's using now. You know how it goes—we always have a new buzzword of the day. Put this word into every proposal and that'll be the thing that's successful. So, I approach it with some skepticism. What do we actually mean by systems change? Are we all even using this term in the same way?
When I first joined the Ahlan Simsim project, one of the first things I saw was a giant Excel sheet of our reach number goals. Like with every project, you have to dream big, but we didn't know exactly how we were going to get there. We were aiming to reach 1.5 million children with programs and services. There was an idea that this would involve working with government, but the initial thought was more of a linear progression: we would develop program models, show that they worked through research, and then present them to ministries of education and health who would automatically want to adopt and scale them.
But this approach really runs counter to how we learned that these things work. When we're thinking about system strengthening or systems change, that original approach wouldn't have fit within those frameworks. It would have been very much more like system substitution—bringing something in that would require us to keep funding it. I'm not sure whether we've done actual systems change. I think of our work more as system strengthening.
What made Ahlan Simsim really successful in practice was that yes, we developed many program models targeting caregivers and children ages zero to eight, including programs for ages zero to three in the health and protection sectors and programs for ages 4-8 in the early education space such as a remote preschool model. We delivered these at IRC centers and with local NGO partners in the more traditional model of training local organizations to implement programs that fit with what they were already doing, boosting their skills and providing funding.
But what worked with the system strengthening approach was that we didn't come in saying, "We have this program that you can use out of the box." Instead we took a different approach. I'll take the example of Iraq, where our teams took the time to build relationships with the right people at the Ministry of Education.
We sat down and really examined the challenges they were facing together with them, and explored how our Ahlan Simsim resources were valuable to meet these challenges and could merge with the Ministry of Education’s existing resources to build something that met their needs.
In Iraq, the main issue that kept coming up with Ministry of Education staff was that only about 9% of kids in Iraq have any kind of pre-primary schooling. This means most children enter grade one with no prior classroom experience. Iraq actually has a rich history of preschool education that existed before various wars. So, unlike some countries where there might not be a strong preschool tradition, in Iraq there was.
In that case, we mentioned that we'd been working in Jordan on a school readiness program for a slightly different context. We developed something similar in Iraq - a two-week school readiness program. Instead of creating new preschool programs that could not be sustained after our project ends, the Ministry of Education has integrated the 2-week program into the first two weeks of grade one, running across all of Iraq.
We designed it from the start to fill gaps. A lot of it focused on social-emotional learning. The teachers loved it. We had amazing interviews with teachers who said, "Wow, I used to find it really hard. We used to see kids sobbing at drop-off for weeks, and now maybe it's just a day or two." Also, because we partnered with Sesame Workshop, who developed an Arabic TV show called Ahlan Simsim as part of our project that's widely watched in Iraq—more than 50% of all kids watch the show— children would come into first grade classrooms and see these Muppets they recognized, creating a warm and welcoming environment.
That's an example of how if we had just arrived saying "we have X program we're going to implement," it's possible the Ministry of Education might have shown interest. But if we’d taken than path, it is not likely to have sustained. Today in 2025, while we’re no longer involved, the program continues to run as a Ministry of Education program. They don't even call it an Ahlan Simsim program anymore and instead an Iraq Ministry of Education program, and that's the ultimate goal.
We have other examples across different countries of what this looked like. But to me, this approach is really about recognizing existing strengths and meeting a need in a way that makes sense in their context.
Thanks so much for sharing that concrete example and your differentiation between systems strengthening and systems change. One core element there is really the partnership aspect, either with the NGOs you mentioned for implementation, or with government entities.
What have you learned during these six years of intensive work about how to build effective partnerships in the education sector? Since working through existing systems requires partnership, what reflections do you have on this crucial area of work?
Again, it's the shift that I slowly see happening across international NGOs. There's been a typical dynamic where we come in with a lot of money, and often I've seen partnerships where it's basically "you have the money so we do what you say."
I think we all know that obviously doesn't work. When I entered IRC, there was already a big shift happening because IRC had just undergone an assessment—interviews and focus groups with many of our partners—and realized we needed to improve our partnerships approach. The organization had already moved into a new system that emphasized equity and collaboration in partnerships.
A lot of the language was changing to focus on what we can learn from our partners who have extensive experience in their own contexts, making it more of a two-way street. We worked with our staff to ensure they approached every conversation with a partner in ways that actually embodied the idea that power should be distributed between us.
When working with the Ministry of Education in Iraq, it was critical to not only design something together but to agree on what problem we were even solving together. The same approach applies to local NGOs, where the reality is that power dynamics are still fairly strong. We structure conversations around questions like, "We all agree that we want to monitor this program, so what systems do you already have in place?" as opposed to "We have a system that we're going to impose on you." And we focus on the actual needs that the NGO is seeing in their community.
An example that makes this clearer is our work in Jordan. We've been working on something similar to the school readiness program in Iraq, but meeting different needs. In Jordan, there's actually pretty widespread access to pre-primary education, but there are some places the Ministry can't reach. In the south of Jordan, there are many isolated communities without accessible schools, and by extension, no accessible early childhood programs. We connected with a network of six CBOs (community based organizations) operating in these remote areas— with very limited access to government services. We worked with them as a network and presented options of a range of Ahlan Simsim program models.
We worked with the local CBOs to determine what models made sense for them. So, there was agency from the start in how we designed what this would look like for these community-based organizations.
We also worked with them to support their ability to get more grants on their own to sustain these programs, and supported them in income generation—thinking about sustainability from the start.
It's this more holistic thinking, as opposed to strictly focusing on reaching our numbers and making sure we're spending money correctly. Those things are important too, but we really tried to approach it as a conversation and as a true equal partnership. I'm not going to say we did this perfectly every time, but that was the intention, and I think we saw a lot of positive movement in that area.
I really appreciate you sharing all those concrete examples, both on partnerships with governments and with smaller NGOs that help you reach children in communities that might otherwise be difficult to access.
Building on that, I'm interested in that delicate balance between depth and breadth of impact in sustainable scaling. Reflecting on your work across different national contexts and the various programs you've mentioned, what's your takeaway on this balance? You mentioned wanting to reach 1.5 million children with that Excel sheet target. How did you ensure quality impact while scaling? I know you invested significantly in evidence gathering. I'm curious to hear your final reflections on how to maintain the impact you want to have at scale.
I think it's tricky and there are a few different pieces to it. I'll mention the research and impact side first. We were lucky with this project to have dedicated funding and a partner in New York University to actually do impact evaluations. We ultimately developed 11 program models, and we didn't do impact evaluations on all of them. I wish we could have, but there's always that balance of what you invest that money in versus investing in reaching more people. There's no right answer.
What's really interesting, which speaks to one part of your question, is that we did impact evaluations on the TV show, which showed positive effects on children's social-emotional learning, and we also evaluated two remote programs: a remote learning program (essentially a preschool program delivered remotely) and a remote version of a home visiting parenting program.
The remote learning program had tremendous results that frankly surprised all of us with how significant the impact was. In just 11 weeks, this remote program showed learning gains typically seen from a year of in-person preschool. We're still very careful to say this doesn't mean we should replace all preschool with remote programs, because you're clearly missing all the benefits of in-person interaction that any person who works with children or any parent understands.
But it is a really important finding for expanding early education to children who can't access a physical school—whether temporarily due to conflict or climate disruptions, or as a more permanent situation. It means we can actually deliver meaningful and impactful early education remotely.
But here's the interesting contrast: we had developed a remote phone-based version of our home visiting program integrated into health services. Instead of a home visitor providing early childhood support in person, we designed it to be delivered over the phone. This was potentially exciting because it would be significantly cheaper than sending home visitors to each family, and potentially more scalable. But when we did the impact evaluation, it didn't show the results we hoped for. It did show some impact on caregivers' depression symptoms, which is meaningful, but the goal of running this program was child development, and it didn't show any impact on child development or caregiver parenting behaviors.
So there's that caution—something that seems cheaper and more scalable may not be impactful. We have to maintain that delicate balance, and for many programs, we don't actually know the impact because we haven't had the chance to run evaluations.
When I think about our goals, I mentioned that we aimed to reach 1.5 million children—we've now passed the 4 million mark, which is super exciting. A lot of that reach comes through our government partnerships. The school readiness program in Iraq is one example. In Jordan, we worked with the Ministry of Health to embed early childhood development tips and resources into what in the US we would call well-child visits—when parents bring children in for their two-month, four-month, or two-year checkups, etc.
With these approaches, we get wide breadth of reach. The impact is embedded into a wider system—we're strengthening something that already exists and increasing its impact. If you look at just the individual impact of a two-week readiness program on its own, it's probably only a tiny bit of change. But because it's setting children on a course to do better in school and stay in school, it has broader effects. Anecdotally, first-grade teachers told us, "Wow, we're seeing how important social-emotional learning is, and we're using some of these activities later in the year." When we think about our work in this wider context, where we're one piece of a larger ecosystem, it changes how we look at impact from a systems-based approach.
That said, it's really important to always think about both breadth and depth. Especially in the humanitarian sector where there's so much need—you don't want to invest in something that's only going to reach a tiny number of children. We did a lot of cost analysis, and I know the sector is moving toward more focus on cost efficiency and cost effectiveness, especially in the current moment.
At the same time, there's a tendency to look at cost analysis and say, "Whatever the cheapest program is, let's go with that." That's not always the best approach because we know that some programs that truly impact a child's learning aren't the cheapest. So how do you balance that? It can be really tricky.
I don't have any black and white answers here, but these are the kinds of things we're grappling with as we move into the next phase. We recently found out we received a new significant grant for Ahlan Simsim's next phase, which is exciting. One of the things I really emphasized in the proposal was that we want to continue the system strengthening work that reaches scale and sustainability, but also reach the children who are left out of the formal systems.
As a humanitarian organization, a major reason for being is to support those most vulnerable and marginalized. So as we think about budgets, yes, we'll get bigger reach from system strengthening, and it will sustain—that's a huge goal. But we also need to make sure we don't over-index to only doing that. We know it's going to cost a lot more per child to reach those children who sit outside the system, but that's why we exist. We're balancing those priorities in this next stage.
Exciting! Congratulations on securing that continued funding. Now, I'd love to hear about your leadership experience. How would you describe your leadership style? Has being a woman affected your approach? What leadership lessons will you take with you to your next role?
This is something I'm thinking about a lot, especially as I consider my next role. My leadership style really centers on listening, which I think isn't everyone's orientation or the obvious approach when people think about being a "strong leader." Finding the balance between collaborative listening as a core value while also being unafraid to set a vision and chart a course—that balance is so important.
Another key piece is being willing to say "I don't know it all". One of the traps I've seen some leaders fall into is feeling they need to be the expert on everything, which can lead to blind spots or defensiveness when they have a really strong team member who's actually the expert in their area.
When I became confident enough to say, "Actually, I'm not the expert in these five things—that's why I've hired all of you," and recognized that my role is setting the vision and bringing everyone together—that became a real strength. I wouldn't be able to do any of the things I'm doing without that approach, and it's something I want to carry into my next role.
I've also been really lucky to have worked mostly under incredible women leaders. I think about that a lot, as I have friends in environments where they haven't had that benefit. I've seen women leaders with very different styles—some approaches I've wanted to adopt, others where I've thought, "That works for you, but it's really not my style." I've tried to incorporate elements from different mentors.
I think what can sometimes be challenging for women in leadership is that skills like listening or collaboration are often seen as "soft skills" that are more associated with women, and therefore viewed as weaknesses rather than strengths. I've learned to own the fact that these are actually strengths and deliberate choices—we're better when we can consider all viewpoints and aren't afraid to say, "I got this wrong" or "Let's pivot" or "Let's try something new," knowing it won't always work.
That was absolutely the environment I inherited, and when I stepped into this role, I knew it was important to maintain that forward momentum—acknowledging that our goal is to test things out and name what doesn't work. That's a power, not a failure. The unwillingness to get things wrong sometimes and ask for help—those are actually weaknesses. So I think the biggest elements I've hopefully instilled in the legacy of Ahlan Simsim, and want to take forward to my new role, are listening first before acting, and then taking those leaps when it's time to take the leap.