Digital and Media Literacy Days spread SID messages in Bulgaria

Safer Internet Day (SID) was celebrated on Tuesday, 6 February 2018 right across the globe. Read on to find out awareness-raising efforts in Bulgaria with more than a month of activities and events.

Date 2018-03-16 Author Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre
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For SID 2018, the Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre (SIC) coordinated a number of campaigns starting on SID (6 February 2018) and continuing through until 17 March 2018 under the general heading of "Digital and Media Literacy Days". This initiative was made possible due to the founding of a "Coalition for Media Literacy in Schools" in October 2017 involving 14 partner NGOs working in the field of digital skills and media literacy of children and education. All campaigns were announced and launched on Safer Internet Day 2018.
 
The largest campaign of all targeted schools. The SIC developed lesson plans, presentations and guidelines for teachers to help them organise special interactive lessons with pupils from 1st to 12th grade. Schools were also provided with a plan and guidelines for a parents' meeting to involve them in the development of their children's digital skills and media literacy.
 
Together with the telecom Telenor, the SIC prepared an online campaign against hateful speech online. Titled "It depends on you", the campaign involved a number of online influencers who posted short videos in a specially developed website sharing their good and bad moments online deriving from comments from users. Their message was not to tolerate hateful online speech, but not to respond with hate neither.
 
The "Children Voice" Foundation launched a competition for teenagers on the theme "And the truth is…" challenging them to produce their own text, audio or video media content describing their feelings about the phenomenon of fake news.
 
The State Agency for Child Protection joined the national campaign by organising open discussions with teenagers and parents in 15 regions of the country on the topic of online risks for children.
 
The "Digital and Media Literacy Days" campaign will close on 17 March 2018 with a parents' forum with the participation of over 250 parents. Ten renowned experts will present on various aspects of the digital lives of children and will answer questions from the public. In addition, a dozen or so companies and organisations will be present in a special exhibition space, where new tools and resources aimed at protecting, entertaining and teaching children digital and media skills and competences will be on display.
 
The formation of a coalition of organisations proved a successful means to organise and coordinate various interconnected campaigns in Bulgaria, thus increasing the outreach both of SID and SIC activities.
 
See the Bulgarian Safer Internet Day profile page for further information.
 
Find out more about the work of the Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre (SIC), including its awareness raising, helpline, hotline and youth participation services.

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