Lithuania: schoolchildren teach parents and teachers
First Safer Internet Day to be celebrated in Lithuania February 7th
The first International Safer Internet Day will be celebrated in Lithuania on 7 February this year. The highlight of the day will be a public lesson on Internet safety, which for the first time will be delivered by Lithuanian schoolchildren. It will be transmitted on the Internet at www.draugiskasinternetas.lt beginning at 12 noon. It was also planned to form a live net made up of the country’s schoolchildren in Europa Square in the capital city, symbolising the desire of young people to prevent harmful information from spreading via the Internet. However, due to bad weather conditions (cold and snow) the event is postponed till spring.
Safer Internet Day is being organised by the telecommunication company ‘Bitė Lietuva’, the Ministry of Education and Science, the School Student Parliament and the Teacher Professional Development Center.
“By celebrating Safer Internet Day together with Europe we hope not only to draw the public’s attention, especially parents, to the problems of Internet security, but also to encourage them to follow Internet innovations and their potential,” said director of Bitė Group customer care Virginija Žiūkienė. According to Žiūkienė, Lithuania will be the first Baltic State to celebrate Safer Internet Day.
Žiūkienė added that since children and teenagers are the most active users of Internet innovations, they will be the main participants in the Safer Internet Day events. “To secure children on the Internet it is important to know what they find interesting and topical on the Internet. For this reason the most important event of the day will be the lesson prepared by students, presenting the Internet through the eyes of youth,” said Žiūkienė.
The first public lesson in Lithuania on Internet safety will start at 12 noon in Europa Business Centre. Students will present the potential of innovations such as ‘blogs’ (Internet diary), ‘chats’ (live conversations) and others that are the most popular among children and youth, explaining how to use them safely. Plans are to involve Lithuanian school teachers, parents, and representatives from institutions to take part in the project and to use students in the public lesson.
After the public lesson, at 14.00 it was planned that students would form the country’s largest live net by linking arms in Europa Square. This action would have symbolised the desire of young people to prevent harmful information from spreading via the Internet. Plans to record the net, which will be made up of several hundred students from schools across the country, in the Lithuanian Book of Records are postponed till spring as the temperature in the country is way below zero degrees.
Safer Internet Day is not the first initiative of the implementers of the Safer Internet programme in Lithuania. In August of last year the first educational portal in the country www.draugiskasinternetas.lt was launched, where harmful or illegal information found on the Internet can be reported. This web page also provides practical advice about safe browsing on the Internet and links to free programmes for contents filtering or against e-mail spam.
The Safer Internet programme, in which particular attention is devoted to children’s safety and the fight against illegal information on the Internet, has been implemented in EU countries since 1999. Upon winning the call for proposals published by the European Commission the programme is being implemented in Lithuania by Bitė Lietuva together with the Ministry of Education and Science and the Centre of Social and Psychological Services.
Comments
waouw ! This is right the same idea as the competition we lanched just now in belgium : have a look to the belgium post, and participate also ! Children 'll teach adult in both contries: let's cooperate ! I guess Netherland should be part also ....waint: it's coming
Posted by: safer internet belgium | February 7, 2006 10:45 AM
Our society is exposed to a growing phenomenon of insecurity and lack of moral values, where the unrestricted access to child pornographic or pseudo-pornographic material in Internet during this last decade, has posed additional challenges to the problem. Child pornography, sexual tourism and minor’s abuse have become a genuine preoccupation. There are thousands of websites offering child pornographic or pseudo-pornographic material and all types of minors´ sexual services, which indicate a clear need of a thorough and complete analysis of the problem and a political appeal in search of solutions.
There are many issues to be taken care of, as apart from the application of new laws all over the world (there is no Argentine legislation), there are still very few specialists on technical investigation of this type of crime.
Consequently, it is necessary to join efforts to collaborate with global action against minor’s abuse, improving legislation, expanding knowledge and resources, improving communication among officials drafting policies and those who are in charge of applying the law.
If we work together as defenders and professionals (with political willingness), we will be able to improve our capacity of protecting victims and act against those who take advantage of children. To acquire this goal, it will be necessary to:
• Develop police structures dedicated to the obtention of proof to inform on the methodology and people responsible for the crimes, understanding the challenge of recognizing the failures of the present hierarquicaly conventional national police structures.
• Facilitate operating cooperation among security forces (national and international) and the non governmental organizations (ONG).
• Facilitating the cooperation for the legislative harmonization and that of the procedures of the legal structure at international level.
Congratulations for a job well done!!!
Bernie Lajmanovich
ASIBA
Information Security Asociation from Buenos Aires Argentina
Posted by: Bernie Lajmanovich | February 8, 2006 07:04 PM