Better Internet for Kids

16-year-old Bulgarian youth panellist Milena Radoytseva was recently recognised as one of 12 kid activists who are changing their communities and the world for the better by The Washington Post. As a member of the Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre's Youth panel, Milena is making the internet safer for Bulgarian children and their families.

CYTA, an organisation part of the Cypriot Safer Internet Centre (SIC) has produced a theatre play on cyberbullying for high school students, called #George's Room. It has been performed in 350 schools in the country, for two consecutive academic years (2018/19 and 2019/20).

As part of the Better Internet for Kids (BIK) Quality Assurance Programme (QAP), the Insafe-INHOPE Coordination Teams are jointly conducting a set of ten country visits to national Safer Internet Centres (SICs) to better understand what is happening in the Member States: monitoring emerging issues and challenges, identifying good practices to be shared, and harvesting the results of the Better Internet for Kids (BIK) policy. Exchange of good practices and identifying further opportunities for collaboration was also the focus of a cluster meeting organised between the Safer Internet Centres in Estonia and Finland on 9-10 December 2019, hosted at the Sofia Future Farm in Helsinki.

Today, the Insafe network of Safer Internet Centres (SICs) begins a two-day training meeting online. This event is an opportunity for members of the network to share experience and good practice and continue to enhance the collaborative learning community that has developed within Insafe.

The time children and young people spend online has increased significantly, giving them access to unprecedented opportunities but also exposing them to new risks. To address this new reality, the European Commission (EC) is funding four Horizon 2020 projects: CO:RE, DigiGen, DIGYMATEX, and ySKILLS, all of which have synergies with Better Internet for Kids (BIK) actions.

In February 2020, Better Internet for Kids (BIK) Youth Ambassador Kathrin Morasch participated in Safer Internet Day (SID) celebrations at the European Commission (EC) to introduce the Youth Pledge for a Better Internet, along with five fellow youth panellists. Below, she looks back on her experience.

The Insafe and INHOPE networks have launched a new capacity-building initiative, the SIC+ programme, to share experiences and expertise acquired within the development of the European Safer Internet Centre model with colleagues across the globe.

From Monday, 11 to Wednesday, 20 May 2020, COFACE Families Europe is marking the International Day of Families 2020 by hosting Digital Citizenship Breakfast Bytes, a series of eight 90-minute online sessions (from 9:30-11:00 CET) aiming to increase critical thinking and understanding of the digital world. On Friday, 15 May 2020, in the session called "SELMA Hacking Hate Toolkit: Games to empower young people online", the participants had the opportunity to take a closer look at the SELMA project.

From Monday, 11 to Wednesday, 20 May 2020, COFACE Families Europe is marking the International Day of Families 2020 by hosting Digital Citizenship Breakfast Bytes, a series of eight 90-minute online sessions (from 9:30-11:00 CET) aiming to increase critical thinking and understanding of the digital world. Named "European Safer Internet Strategy post-2020: key trends and priorities", the Breakfast Byte of Wednesday, 13 May 2020 focused on the European Strategy for a Better Internet for Children, which is currently under revision.

In February 2020, on the occasion of Safer Internet Day (SID), a group of Better Internet for Kids (BIK) Youth Ambassadors prepared a Youth Pledge for a Better Internet on how to make the information on the apps and services they use on the internet more age appropriate for children and young people, and presented it to a panel of industry representatives at the European Commission. Matěj, BIK Youth Ambassador from Czechia, reflects on his experience below.