Accra, Ghana\\-Child Online Africa, a leading child centred NGO and Safer Internet Day Africa (SID Africa) partners have announced that Safer Internet Day 2021 (#SID2021) will be celebrated in Ghana and other African countries on Tuesday 9 February 2021.
The Safer Internet Day is a day set aside to discuss how to make the web a safe place for everyone especially children.
This year’s #SID2021 celebration which is themed- ‘Positioning and Partnering for Child Online Protection’ will be observed across Africa.
The objectives of the SID2021 according to the Child Online Africa are to among other things help child-focused organizations tackle and approach child online protection (COP) issues holistically without having to prioritize one risk over another.
The day also seeks to ensure a better online environment is created for all especially children and young people; foster a culture of COP with relevant stakeholders backed by policies including the children themselves; and develop, share or contextualize available resources to support children’s detection and management of cyberbullying situations.
Activities
Speaking at a press launch in Accra, Awo Aidam Amenyah, Executive Director for Child Online Africa said country specific programme of activities would be held both virtual and physical.
These activities she mentioned include safer internet day DQ skills experience, Safer Internet Day lessons with Sango the Mascot, supply of free educational resources, socially distanced safer internet day, sign up for a safer internet day, and school assembly sessions.
Mrs Amenyah explained : “The 2021 celebration is keener because of our present situation, taking into cognizance the effects of COVID-19 on the world.
Our lives have moved from physical spaces to virtual ones with the students having to do mostly online classes and workers now having to telework and hold online meetings”.
Government’s across the Africa needs to make a conscientious effort to partner various online protection agencies to ensure the internet is a safer place for all especially children guided by the New Child Online Protection Guidelines launched by the International Telecommunications Union in 2020, she added.
“As the Safer Internet Day Committee for Ghana and one of the Child Online Protection Implementation Partners, we are more than happy to be working with the African theme since it will afford all countries in Africa to team up in order to make things happen for the African Child.”
The Africa Safer Internet Day is expected to contribute to information and knowledge sharing on Child Online Protection best practices, from governance to basic skills/tips and is expected to bring Child Protection stakeholders, both local and international, together towards securing that African Child is safe online.
Key themes
Key themes that will be covered during the flash capacity building presentations on Tuesday will focus on stakeholder involvement, Child Online Protection in practice, tips for parents on Child Online Protection, tips for School Management Committees, legislative regime for effective Child Online Protection, the Role of research in Child Online Protection, among other areas.
ASID2021 partners include: National Communications Authority (NCA) ; Facebook (Africa); Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors (CBOD); Africa Digital Rights Hub (ADRH); Innovare Dimension Data Limited; Africa Telecommunications Union (ATU); World Vision International-Ghana (WVI); Ministry of Communications (MoC); Safer Internet Day (SID); Africa Safer Internet Day Convenor; and Child Online Africa (COA).
Instructively, SID is a landmark campaign delivered locally through a number of Safer Internet Centres in Europe and Safer Internet Day Committees beyond Europe, and it is backed by the Better Internet for Kids’ line of work (coordinated by European Schoolnet on behalf of the European Commission.
The day is marked in February of each year to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially among children and young people across the world.
Although the campaign originally started in Europe back in 2004, it has grown year on year since that time, and was celebrated in more than 140 countries in 2019.
African Eye Report
