Nurturing Better Generation of Muslims Through Animation

We would like to invite you to join us in our dakwah initiative. This is for Muslim children around the world and for our ummah. We want the next generation of Muslims to be better than us. Please join this initiative for betterment here and the hereafter. Doing Good Is Awesome!

Introduction

Assalamualaikum w.b.t. ,

I pray whoever is reading this is in the best of health with Allah’s barakah, insyaAllah.

My name is Fyzul. I am from Fine Act Sdn. Bhd. We are a small Malaysian company with 50+ people (to date) on our payroll. We are in digital media, IT and property.

We are currently producing SuperJo, a 39 episodes x 3.5 min of 3D animation Islamic edutainment series in English for international preschoolers. 

The estimated total production cost for manpower, capital expenditure (“CAPEX”) and outsourcing work is RM3.0m (USD650k/GBP580k),  not including Marketing and any other Operational Expenses. We were awarded a RM1.2m (USD260k/GBP230k) grant by MDEC in December 2021. We are now looking to crowdfund RM100k (USD21.5k/GBP19.4k) for our Phase 1 of the remaining RM1.8m (USD390k/GBP350k) in the form of zakat, waqf or charity / sadaqah / donation.

Background 

SuperJo is a dakwah project to demonstrate good Islamic values from the verses of the Quran to children below 7 years old. Based on what we’ve learned from a study by Prof Morris Massey, an American sociologist / marketeer, the children’s brains are like sponges at this age. Prof Massey calls this the Imprint Period. This is when children learn to differentiate right from wrong, good vs bad. Coincidentally, a hadith says the same, i.e. to start teaching children how to pray when they turn 7 years old. 

Why is this important? Values are difficult to teach. Adults do not change overnight from listening to sermons or lectures. There seems to be a mismatch between values and beliefs in an adult Muslim. There is a famous quote on this observation by an Egyptian Islamic scholar, Muhammad Abduh, that goes “I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam”. For Muslims to change, it must be approached generationally. It was challenging before, but we can do it now via social media.

We tend to push children to pray, fast, memorise the Quran, etc as young as possible, when we actually should be focusing on instilling good values. Consequently, we have Muslims that pray with no remorse slacking off work, asking for bribes or being late for appointments. Assuming children develop good values as a byproduct from knowing how to pray is faulty. We need the right content in our education.

Values cannot be taught from books. Children learn from observation. Since children nowadays spend a lot of time on digital screens, we can show the children these values from smartly designed entertaining videos. We do have Islamic children content on YouTube but mostly on sing-a-long zikir, on how to perform solat and observing fasting. 

So where do our children observe values? Muslim children watch values from Western children programmes on Netflix and Disney+. Some of the programmes in these Western media showcase universal values but there are too many instances which are against Islam. To circumvent this Muslims have the responsibility to produce more of our own children's content like SuperJo. Hopefully there will be more like it in the future.

SuperJo

Children learn best from self discovery, not preaching. This is what our Muslim revert Canadian counterpart taught us. This couple founded MuslimKids.tv. They have been in the children edutainment industry for over 20 years. They showed us the dos and don’ts when we were designing SuperJo. We believe SuperJo is as entertaining as PJ Masks and Doc McStuffin on the Disney channel. This is based on the feedback we received from the SuperJo pilot that debuted in 2018.

SuperJo is currently in production. The series is in English with Malay subtitles, as it is intended for the global Muslim audience. It is a 39 episodes x 3.5-minute short 3D animation about a normal child, SuperJo, who turns into a superhero in his imaginary world, where the toys become alive, and where SuperJo learns good Islamic values. It is short to cater for the shorter concentration span amongst children below 7 years old.

On the broadcasting front, we have secured partnerships with MuslimKid.tv (Canada), Nurflix (Malaysia) and an offer from Ali Huda (Europe). We participated in MIPTV Cannes back in 2018. We have received two written interests from distributors based in Canada and USA (Los Angeles). We are in weekly communication with a distributor from Lebanon. We also have an interest from a distributor in Indonesia and India through our local contacts. Locally, we have established communications with RTM, TV Al-Hijrah, Media Prima and Astro. 

We are in the process of raising funds for production. We are grateful MDEC have shown their confidence in SuperJo. On 23 December 2021, MDEC awarded SuperJo a RM1.2m (USD260k/GBP230k) grant via its Digital Content Grant Programme (“DCG”). This grant funds roughly 40% in manpower, CAPEX and outsourcing works (excluding marketing and other operational costs). 

We have started production and now we have 50+ people on our payroll to date. We are looking to employ a minimum of 68 people (or more). We noticed the employment market is hungry for work as the economy is recovering from the Mandatory Control Order (“MCO”). We are glad we are being a part of the solution.

Closing

In summary, there is an increasing competition for attention on the mobile screen. Our Muslim society should use this opportunity to nurture good values in children through well designed video contents like SuperJo. We believe SuperJo would be the impetus towards a better generation of Muslims.

We hope with your generosity we could realise this project and will be on our way to make the next generation of Muslims better than ours. 

InsyaAllah. Amin.