Digital Youth Summit bats for online literacy for social media users

Facebook’s Clair Deevy gives the opening keynote at the Digital Youth Summit hosted by Facebook and Mano Amiga on Oct. 3 at the Ascott Bonifacio Global City.

Running from Oct. 5 to Oct. 7, the Think Before You Share Philippines Digital Youth Summit hosted by Facebook and Mano Amiga Philippines is poised to tackle a few problems plaguing the online landscape in the Philippines.

The 75 student leaders attending the summit, who were chosen from different parts of the country, will undergo skills training to improve their critical thinking and digital literacy.

Facebook’s Head of Community Affairs for APAC, Clair Deevy, expressed hope that the students will return to their communities more equipped as they share what they had learned from the event.

“We started many months ago, speaking to Lynn (Eleanor Pinugu) and Mano Amiga, who I’ve known for a few years to understand how could we address the challenge of creating skills of critical thinking, digital literacy and building empathy,” Deevy said.

These traits are crucial to building a safer digital space and giving social media users the tools required to identify fake and malicious information floating around on the web, according to Deevy.

Facebook’s partner in the Philippines is Mano Amiga Academy, a school system founded in Mexico, which provides education for low-income families.

Mano Amiga Philippines co-founder and executive director Eleanor Pinugu, said that the Philippine branch of the school was saved from closure thanks to social media.

“We would have closed down in four years if we didn’t have the opportunity to re-raise funds and awareness for the school (using) social media,” Pinugu said.

Pinugu expressed excitement over their partnership with Facebook, saying that she witnessed firsthand with her students the transformative power of digital literacy.

“When we launched this project-based on learning in the school and ask them to just pause and just thinking before they share led to a lot of self-reflection on how they behaved online and also what are the concrete ways they can share other people’s behavior,” she said.

Pinugu also mentioned that the students developed a sense of accountability for their actions online.

The Think Before You Share Philippines Digital Youth Summit features a bevy of panel discussions featuring various media personalities such as celebrities, journalists and advocacy groups for its three-day run.

The morning discussion panel tackling Internet and Social Good featured actress Iza Calzado, photographer and AIDS activist Niccolo Cosme, artist and graphic designer Sofia Cope and Spark Project founder Patch Dulay.

The discussion was moderated by Clarissa Delgado, co-founder and CEO of Teach for the Philippines. /jpv

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