Facebook partners Junior Achievement, CcHub to launch online youth safety programme for schools
By FACEBOOK has announced that it has teamed up with Co-Creation Hub (CcHub) and Junior Achievement Nigeria to launch an online safety programme for students in secondary schools across the country, including in Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Ibadan and Kaduna.
In form of a 12-week workshop, the programme, SafeOnline, is designed to help teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17 in understanding the fundamentals of online safety and digital literacy.
It explores topics such as Managing an Online Presence, Social Media and Sharing, Public Wi-Fi Safety, Building Healthy Relationships Online, Understanding Password Security and Privacy Settings, as well as Identifying Misinformation Online.
Speaking on the initiative, Facebook’s Policy Programmes Manager, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sherry Dzinoreva, said “Collectively, we all have a responsibility to help teach the fundamentals of staying safe online to our future generations.
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“With the youngest aged continent, we’re seeing more young people come online in Nigeria, and understanding how to identify and filter misinformation, managing their online presence and how to stay safe online are just some of the core skills we need to equip them with.
“Facebook’s Digital Literacy Library has been designed to make it easy to integrate these lessons into the curriculum or on their own as part of after-school programmes.”
She said these will be run as after-school clubs through a network of specially trained safety educators.
Using select modules from Facebook’s Digital Literacy Library, a new online resource tool developed by Youth and Media (YaM) researchers at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, the Facebook Digital Literacy Library is currently available for teachers and youth facilitators to access free of charge, and consists of over 18 lessons covering a range of topics in both English and Hausa.
“We have seen the enthusiasm with which they (youths) use the internet to access knowledge and tools to develop their skills. With this, we have realized that now more than ever, it is important to also empower them with the skills to stay safe as they explore the online world.
“We believe that this programme lays the foundation for building young digital safety champions across Nigeria.” Said Nissi Madu, Programme Manager, relearn by CcHub.
Executive Director, Junior Achievement Nigeria, Simi Nwogugu, said: “We realised the opportunities afforded by the Internet also came with some challenges, particularly for young students who may be more vulnerable online, so when Facebook approached us about SafeOnline, it was exactly what we needed to insure our students against those vulnerabilities.”
Next year, the programme is expected to extend to Enugu, Port Harcourt, Jos, Aba and Uyo.
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