‘Bino and Fino’ are doing what ‘Dora the Explorer‘ does–teaching children in the Diaspora about another culture and language.

‘Bino and Fino’ is a cartoon series about a brother and sister named Bino and Fino who live with their grandparents ‘Mama’ and ‘Papa’ in a modern day city in Africa.

They teach children about counting, colors, and animals, and will also help teach children major African languages. ‘Bino and Fino’ have many adventures where, with the help of their friend Zeena the Magic Butterfly, they discover and learn things about the world.

Created by Adamu Waziri, a cartoonist based in Lagos, Nigeria, ‘Bino and Fino’ aired on Sky TV and has been featured on BBC and CNN. In an interview on African Digital Art  he gives his reason for starting the cartoon.

“I want kids globally to see that African children and African society has pretty much the same aspirations, they are just as intelligent as they are, and can also be as developed as they are. If you look at the media, if Disney does Africa it’s an animal or it’s set in a safari, or it’s Tarzan. But this whole singing, happy to be poor, we don’t want anymore than just our simple life Africa is wholly different from the Africa that I know. All the kids say I want to be an astronaut or I want to be a scientist or I want to be an architect or a lawyer or I am aspiring to this, I want a decent house, so that thing is very subtle. As a kid when I was watching cartoons, I was watching stuff like Voltron, Battle of the Planets and all that kind of boy stuff, somehow you just got to know that the Japanese were smart, they had robots, they had stuff that was kicking. All the things you see of Africa and of black people is just this weird simple we are just happy to be where we are thing. So hopefully we are showing people in houses, a Nigerian or an African child using a computer etc.”

To learn more about the show, or purchase the DVD, visit their website, or follow them on their Facebook page.