Portuguese Meeting of Media Education - Insights from a BIK Youth Ambassador

BIK Youth Ambassador João Pedro Martins is a Portuguese Digital Leader. On Friday, 10 May 2019, he will present his youth panel to the fourth Portuguese Meeting of Media Education as a best practice case.

Date 2019-05-10 Author João Pedro Martins, BIK Youth Ambassador Section awareness, youth Topic media literacy/education Audience children and young people

"The fourth Portuguese Meeting of Media Education will take place on Friday, 10 May 2019 in the auditorium of the Agrupamento de Escolas do Cerco in Oporto.

"The 2019 event is integrated in the ‘Seven days with media' initiative and is entitled ‘A question of intelligences'. It consists of a plenary session called ‘An issue of intelligences: artificial, emotional?', a best practice sharing panel and several media workshops.

"This fourth Portuguese Meeting of Media Education is the result of a joint initiative of the Directorate-General for Education, the National Reading Plan 2027, the School Libraries Network, the Union of Journalists and RTP (public Portuguese media channel), ZigZag and ZigZag Radio.

"It is worth noting that the 2019 edition of the ‘Seven days with media' initiative begins with the Fifth Congress on Literacy, Media and Citizenship (organised by the Informal Group on Media Literacy (GILM), and ends with the Portuguese Meeting of Media Education.

"Participation in this meeting is free, but subject to registration, given the limited number of vacancies.

"I will be speaking about the Portuguese Digital Leaders Project as a best practice case. I will be sharing my views as a former youth member of the group and now as a mentor of the current assembly, which will be represented by Joana Martins, an outstanding digital leader.

"It is interesting to reflect on the evolution of the project since I first enrolled in it, when I was 12 years old. Back then, there were only four schools involved with students from the seventh to the ninth grade. Now, the project has expanded to schools all around the country (mainland and islands), and has different tracks for young people between elementary and secondary levels. The main idea is to provide advanced training in peer mentoring and online safety issues to a specific group of young people that can act as digital leaders in their communities. Ideas and local approaches are shared among leaders through regional events and national webinars."

About the author:

Photo of João Pedro Martins, Youth Ambassador

João is a 20-year-old Computer Engineering student at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. He has been a Youth Ambassador for six years.

Born in Portugal, he was one of the first members from outside Lisbon to join the youth panel of his national Safer Internet Centre (SIC). After attending a Safer Internet Forum (SIF) in Luxembourg in 2011 representing his country, he was invited to be a Youth Ambassador. Since then he has attended in Paris and Cachan, as well as the European Parliament for the launch of the WebWeWant handbook. He has also participated in two more editions of SIF. Throughout the years, he has had the opportunity to raise awareness among his peers, learn about online safety issues and met many interesting people from all around the world.

Young people's opinions are very important for João and he believes that they should be taken into account by both politicians and industry. That is why he is involved in projects connected to youth participation in debates and decision-making processes. More recently, he has worked alongside his national SIC to organise lectures in local schools and regional events, and has been involved in internet governance events, both at national (Incode2030 and Portuguese IGF – 2016/17) and international (Global IGF – Mexico 2016) levels.

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