Univision has announced their brand new mini-series titled “La Fuerza De Creer,” a collaboration with Too Small to Fail, an early childhood initiative of The Opportunity Institute and the Clinton Foundation. The series has the purpose of continuing its efforts in the Hispanic community about the importance of their young children’s early brain development. The dramatic miniseries –which includes two hour-long television episodes, three webisodes, as well as digital content– incorporates storylines that resonate with Hispanic America while providing resources from its long-running empowerment effort, Pequeños y Valiosos (Young and Valuable).
Pequeños y Valiosos encourages Hispanic parents and caregivers to engage in language-rich activities, such as talking, reading, and singing with their young children (aged 0-5 years old) to boost early literacy, numeracy and social-emotional development. This marks the first time that Univision is utilizing dramatic storytelling to empower its audience and promote a social impact message.
In the miniseries, Dr. Roberto López (Guillermo Quintanilla), the founder of the Central Public Health Center, has served young patients for three decades, but now is considering retirement. His colleague David Ureña (Jean Paul Lerox) is a pediatric physician who seems more concerned about the center’s metrics and finances than optimizing patient care. That brings him into conflict with the newest team member, Dr. Laura Gómez (María de la Fuente), whose patience, empathy and sound advice have made her a favorite among patients despite a troubling incident in her past. But revenues are down, and the clinic is in danger of closing, and a jealous Dr. Ureña blames Dr. Gomez for changes she made to clinic procedures while he was away.
As the doctors deal with the clinic’s declining revenues and with personal challenges, parents continue to bring their children to the health center, where in addition to medical care, they receive advice on a range of early childhood development topics, including ways to boost early brain and language development; the benefits of bilingualism; the importance of fathers and other caregivers; and, healthy social-emotional development, among other topics.
The series was produced by Univision and Too Small to Fail in collaboration W Studios, Univision’s joint venture with the internationally-acclaimed producer Patricio Wills.
The integration of the central message and call-to-action into the storyline of the dramatic series, “La Fuerza de Creer” is a first for the Univision network. The series’ messaging, real-life storylines and creative designs were informed by Too Small to Fail’s team of experts, partners and beneficiaries who serve the Hispanic community. “La Fuerza de Creer” reflects the newest innovation and phase for Pequeños y Valiosos, which encompasses message integrations across scripted and non-scripted programming as well as through text message outreach for parents and caregivers who receive twice-weekly text prompts, tools and activities that help them transform everyday moments into brain-building opportunities for their young children.
Since 2014, Pequeños y Valiosos, which is part of Univision Contigo’s efforts to build strong minds, has been emphasizing the importance of engaging young children ages 0-5 in activities that contribute to their early brain development and supports parents with tools to talk, read, and sing with their children from the moment they’re born.
Source: Latin Times
