digiPEERS: Development programme supports young people’s digital citizenship

• July 26, 2023
• Andrew

The digital era brings new challenges and opportunities, and it is important that young people are prepared to live in the online world. DigiPEERS seeks to shed light on these new aspects of digital citizenship for young people aged 14-19. DigiPEERS is an innovative development programme that offers students the opportunity to develop in a variety of digital areas, improving digital skills and responsible behaviour in the online world.

DigiPEERS is a development voluntary programme for teenagers, supported by Digital Intelligence (digiQ). It offers young people the opportunity to learn new things about online safety, social media and critical thinking. Consequently, this knowledge helps to spread this knowledge among their peers in the regions through, for example, workshops in schools, experience activities, articles, or the creation of content on social networks.

Since its launch in September 2021, digiPEERS has achieved excellent results, with the 28 active participants undertaking 290 learning activities reaching out to many students in the target age group. In addition, 36 diverse learning materials have been developed and are used to support learning in different settings.

DigiPEERS is also actively involved in the #Cyber4Kids programme. Since its launch in 2018, over 5000 children have been trained. This cooperation enables knowledge and expertise to be disseminated to an even wider circle of young people.

This year, 15 young volunteers aged 14-19 are looking for digiPEERS for their programme. More information and registration can be found on their website. The selected applicants will receive the following benefits throughout the course of the programme:

— training on specific topics;

— online and offline individual mentoring;

— accompanying the different phases of the programme;

— the possibility to participate in the activities of older digiPEERS;

— opportunities in Slovakia and abroad.