Better Internet for Kids

This year, the Safer Internet Centre (SIC) Lithuania took a decentralised approach to celebrate Safer Internet Day and offered many different smaller activities spread over a longer period. The communication campaign started with a national school contest organised by LINESA (Lithuanian Agency of Non-Formal Education). The contest invited all schools to submit a creative work of art about how they solve online problems at their school. Children, youth, and adults (teachers and educators) were invited to participate. The best works were awarded school visits with a special creative workshop organised for up to 80 pupils at that school. A total of 12 schools were visited. The contest also provided valuable insights into the problems that the schools face. The most common problems emphasised in the submissions were online bullying, hate speech, and the spreading of fake information. In total, 17 schools provided more than 50 works. Some of the works were done by an entire classroom of students.

On 11 February, the main SID event took place – the Digital Wave (Skaitmeninė banga) organised by the Communications Regulatory Authority of the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian Hotline). The main format of the event was online, which later transformed into many smaller events in public libraries across Lithuania. The main part of the event was divided into 45-minute lessons for different age groups (up to 4th year of education; 5th to 8th year of education; 9th to 12th year of education; adults; senior citizens) with slightly different topics and presenters. The main topic of the whole event was digital media literacy, with critical thinking and AI being discussed a lot in many of the lessons. The main SID event attracted a lot of media coverage, and many schools participated in the live streaming, which was done in collaboration with one of the commercial news outlets – Delfi. The Digital Wave lessons can also be accessed on a dedicated website.

The other consortium partners, LINESA and the association “Langas į ateitį” (LIA), organised two other significant events: Šurmulį praradę mokyklų koridoriai: ar dėl to kaltas internetas (The school corridors that became unusually silent: is the internet to blame), organised by LINESA, and E. paslaugų pasaulis: nepamirškime saugumo (E.service world: let’s not forget the safety), organised by LIA. These events helped to catch the attention of other groups in society, such as teachers, educators, parents, etc. The “The school corridors that became unusually silent: is the internet to blame” event hosted a discussion between different points of view: for and against the phone ban at schools. The “E.service world: let’s not forget the safety” event was organised during Safer Internet Week, which is a long-standing tradition of LIA. This year, the whole week was dedicated to e.service use and digital literacy, which was accompanied by an online quiz on one of the main commercial news outlets of Lithuania – 15min.lt.

As mentioned earlier, the SIC Lithuania celebrations for Safer Internet Day lasted throughout the whole month of February. Many smaller events were organised by the SIC LT partners. One activity that is fast becoming a successful tradition is documentary movie screenings in collaboration with the NK-Doku platform, which offers non-profit public viewings of various documentary films. Specially selected documentaries such as TikTok Boom, And the King Said, What a Fantastic Machine, and Can't Feel Nothing were presented to the public through the public library network and other participating institutions. The National Centre of Cybersecurity invited the youth to participate in a “Cybersprint!” cybersecurity competition, while LIA invited young girls and women to participate in a hackathon to celebrate EU Code Week.

To conclude, SIC LT took an approach where many activities were offered to the Lithuanian public. Various groups in society were reached, including those that could be considered more vulnerable. The activities were organised from the early days of February all the way into March. The Digital Wave event was a huge success, offering ready-made lessons for various age groups. The side events provided interesting and valuable insights for other groups in society. Partner and smaller events helped to reach those who perhaps were not reached by the main events, as well as providing additional value for those most engaged in safer internet topics.

Learn more about Safer Internet Day activities in Lithuania on their SID page on our platform!

Further information about the Lithuanian Safer Internet Centre can be found on the Better Internet for Kids (BIK) public portal, including links to its national websites and other contact information. Similar information can be found on the BIK portal for all Safer Internet Centres in Europe.