As part of its Cyberpeace campaign, Google Philippines partners with NGO Teach Peace Build Peace Movement, YouTube creators, teachers, employees, and volunteers to promote online safety in private and public schools in the Philippines.
Google’s latest initiative involves the teaching of modules based on the Be Internet Awesome Curriculum, the company’s formulated course outline to guide educators in teaching digital citizenship. It tackles five core concepts and values: online reputation, critical thinking to fight scams and misinformation, privacy and security, cyberbullying, and reporting inappropriate online behaviors. For the Philippines, the company decided to add and address relevant and prevalent issues like catfishing and cancel culture.
The company has started training their partners for the curriculum, including the teachers and volunteers all over the country. It kicked-off its first session recently at San Francisco Hig School in Quezon City spearheaded by local education YouTuber Lyqa Maravilla and vlogger Janina Vela.
The program, which aims to reach at least 10,000 students on public and private academic institutions nationwide, calls an urgency for a safer Internet. The recent findings from Google’s Digital Wellbeing of Families report show the Philippines has the highest number of households that heavily rely on digital technology to connect with their loved ones at least once a day. However, about 85 percent of Filipino parents worry when their children are online. They are concerned about getting their kids exposed to the dangerous content existing on the Internet.
“At Google, we believe kids and the youth should be able to experience the best of technology–and that parents should be able to feel confident letting them explore online. Through the Cyberpeace campaign, we hope not to only help Filipino families stay safer online but provide a springboard for a shared, nationwide commitment to a more peaceful internet, at the heart of a vibrant digital economy for all Filipinos,” said Bernadette Nacario, country director, Google Philippines.
Google also introduces their tools that make browsing the Internet even safer. There’s the Family Link that enables parents to supervise their kids’ online activities, SafeSearch to filter out browser results, Incognito for private browsing, Google 2-step Verification for protecting passwords and devices, and YouTube Kids for monitoring and playing curated videos for kids according to their age.
To be a volunteer in the Cyberpeace campaign, feel free to visit Google and Teach Peace Build Movement’s social media accounts.