Rugby MP Mark Pawsey met with leading youth charities Childnet International and the Diana Award in Parliament to find out more about the roll-out of a major programme to offer every UK secondary school dedicated digital safety ambassadors to help tackle cyber bullying.
At the event Mark met Digital Leaders from Childnet International and Anti-Bullying Ambassadors from the Diana Award, who told him about their efforts to eliminate bullying and promote digital citizenship online and offline. The Diana Award is a charity founded in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales and supports initiatives aimed at working with young people to help them eliminate bullying.
The event was also attended by representatives of Facebook, the largest social network in the world, who spoke to MPs including Mark about the work they are doing to keep young people safe online. Their new commitment working in partnership with the Diana Award could see tens of thousands of pupils in schools across the UK trained as Digital Leaders and Anti-Bullying Ambassadors.
Speaking after the event in Parliament, Mark said:
“Keeping youngsters safe in the digital world is becoming increasingly important as they spend more and more time online during their formative years. As such, it is vital that we give children the right tools to protect themselves and the peer-to-peer model that digital safety ambassadors offer is a great way of achieving this.”
Mark continued:
“Earlier this month I visited Eastlands Primary School in Rugby to speak to their eCadets, a similar programme running across the country in primary schools, to find out more about how they are helping to keep their friends and fellow pupils safe when they are online. It was clear from the enthusiasm of the pupils at Eastlands that they really value the eCadets programme and I hope that the Childnet and the Diana Award can achieve the same success at secondary schools in the constituency.”
Will Gardner, CEO at Childnet International added:
“We launched the Childnet Digital Leaders Programme two years ago as part of our work in the UK Safer Internet Centre, with support from Facebook and the European Commission. Since then we have trained thousands of peer educators in schools across the UK using our innovative digital platform and we are constantly inspired by the amazing activities they deliver to make a really positive difference in their school communities.”