SID 2019

National Safer Internet Day event “Conversation in other way!” 

This year’s Safer Internet Day (SID) celebration took place on Tuesday, 5 February 2019. The campaign’s slogan, “Together for a better internet“, was a call for all the countries to invite stakeholders to join together and play their part in creating a better internet for everyone, and especially for younger users. Safer Internet day in Lithuania is celebrating every year since 2004. We are very glad that the number of partners are growing every year. We see that „Internet safety“ is important to everyone and everyone is looking for a ways how they can teach each other how to build a better internet together.

On February 5, 2019, celebrating the Safer Internet Day in Lithuania, the event “Conversation in other way!” was organized. The event took place in one of the biggest cinema centre in Lithuania “FORUM CINEMA”. This year the event focused on 10th and 12th grade pupils and their teachers. Various youth organisations, representatives of different ministries and other educational institutions interested in the subject of internet safety were invited to attend the event too.

The event took place when most of schools in Lithuania were closed due to a large number of sick children. But we were very pleased that many invited participants gathered at the event. 250 participants attended the event: 20 teachers, more than 200 pupils from 35 different Lithuanian schools and 26 representatives from various institutions. All the participants, who came to the event, got the medical masks. Many were surprised, but thanked to organizers for thinking not only about the event’s activities, but also about the health of the participants.

The event “Conversation in other way!” was organized in the cinema hall, so all the participants were invited for the film review at first. The event was started not with a lecture or lesson, but with the film review, because the organizer wanted to give the opportunity to fill the real world of the internet and to show how hard people are working with it.

The film „The Cleaners” (short description here) is closely related to the virtual space. The film raised the questions: who “cleans” our social networks from inappropriate content (pornography, violence), where exactly is the point of balance for social media to be neither an unlegislated space nor a forum rife with censorship? For event organizers was important to note that a typical “cleaner” must observe and rate thousands of deeply disturbing images and videos every day.

There was a discussion about the film after the movie review. The discussion was moderated by Helpline’s (CL) project coordinator, trainer of volunteers Justina Stefanovič and one of the CL volunteer Andrius Baležentis. The participants of the event were very courageous and actively participated in the discussion. All the participants were involved in the discussion: teachers, pupils, representatives of ministries and police officers too. The film caused a lot of questions and reflection, so the discussion was very successful.

The lecture “Criminal acts in cyberspace” were read at the event too.  For the interesting lecture we are grateful to the representative of the Lithuanian Police Vytautas Tuinyla.With the topic of SID2019 “Together for a better internet” the organizer of the event tried to show that we are all responsible for the content we create on the Internet, also it was important to pay attention to the hard work of internet “cleaners”. We should never forget that we all are web developers.

During the SID2019 event Youth panel members worked as the reporters of the event, accompanied by the Youth Panel coordinator. They talked to the participants, asked their opinions about social networks, they were interested in what the youth most often do on the internet.

The word about SID 2019 and Safer Internet Program activities spread throughout the all week 4-9 February 2019. Project coordinators and project friends as well organized many different activities: The representatives of the project take part in national TV and radio shows; · Series of internet safety educational activities for children, youngsters and adults were organized in public libraries in cities and rural areas (totally in 610 libraries);

    • The online test on topic “Online security” for school children was organized by Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania. Everyone solved the test correctly was awarded with a safer internet badge.
    • Using the SID2019 occasion teachers were invited to join the eSafety Label community, to fill in the assessment form and get the eSafety Label for their school.
    • Discussion with 3 Lithuanian vloggers and influencers was organized, where they shared personal experience about bullying;
    • The competition for primary school students was organized inviting them to model the better internet using clay, plasticine or any other modelling material.
    • The competition for high school students was organized inviting them to create videos about privacy online and sexting;
    • Competition “Safer internet events 2019 in my school” was organized. In the competition, which has already become a tradition, were participated 23 schools and close to 5.600 participants;
    • 3 projects („#SID the abc“, „Robot’s Safe Internet Academy“ and „SID 2019!“) were initiated by Lithuanian teachers. Each of them became international because other countries joined the project too;
      • 15 Youth panel members organized the lessons in their schools. Youth Forum members shared their experiences, invited students to join their team in project. The Youth panel members invited young people to post information in social networks with hashtags #SID2019, #SaferInternetDay, #SaferInternetDay2019, #SID2019, #SID, #sijfLT. During all Safer internet week the Youth Forum members publicized their video films on their facebook account;
      • The lessons in 25 different schools were organized by representatives of Lithuanian police;
      • Vilnius police club for children and youth organized lessons and quiz-discussion on topic „Internet security“. All activities were organized for children from disadvantaged families;
      • The seminar for teachers and adolescents (12-18) was organized by Public institution Information Technologies Institute (ITI) in cooperation with Kaunas Faculty;
      • The various activities were organized by Lithuanian Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in cooperation with Youth panel members;
      • Initiative “10,000 Children Safer on the Internet” was launched during the Safe Internet Week and will take place throughout the 2019 year. On the self-learning platform https://moki-moku.lt/lt/) the  test „Safe online behaviour” for pupils of all ages was created. Everyone solved the test correctly was awarded by smart prize (ticket to the movie, phone bill replenishment, google play electronic money and so on.);
      • The project lecturers of the ambassadors invited teachers to share the information how is celebrating the Safer Internet Day in their schools (events, methodological material, useful links and so on). The information can be found on the online platform PADLET here https://padlet.com/asta_buineviciute/SID2019.

All educational institutions interested in the subject of internet safety were invited to cooperate. We are counting that more than thirteen thousand participants participated in all organized activities that were dedicated to a safer internet day in Lithuania.

The Safer Internet Day 2019 event and related activities are supported by lots of friends and partners  see the SIC website for more information.