Closing ceremony of ‘Online Protection of Every Child in Bangladesh’ held
The closing ceremony of the ‘Online Protection of Every Child in Bangladesh’ programme was held at Bangladesh Shishu Academy in Dhaka recently, said a press release.
Since 2014, Grameenphone and UNICEF have been conducting outreach programs in schools across the country to create awareness and understanding of a safer internet environment for children and to sensitise parents, guardians and teachers.
More than 130,000 students were trained and more than 20,000 parents and teachers until 2018 were made aware of this in 2018 and 2019.
Under this program, Grameenphone and UNICEF provide face-to-face training to about one million students and sensitise over 270,000 parents, teachers and guardians.
Besides, the Child Helpline 1098 provides support on any child safety issues, including online safety. On top of that, over 50 million individuals were made aware on the importance of safety measures while using internet through national awareness campaigns.
Grameenphone has been campaigning for a safer online experience for children through social campaign ‘Thik line-e Online-e’ over the years as well as through on-ground training sessions at schools all over Bangladesh.
Since internet connectivity played a vital role in the continuation of education for children around the world amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, Grameenphone and UNICEF continued its work on child online safety program “Be Smart, Use Heart” to create a meaningful and safer digital participation.
The program was aimed to create a safer learning space for everyone, regardless of gender, location, or socio-economic background.
SM Latif, project director and joint secretary of women and children affairs ministry, Khairul Basher, head of communications at Grameenphone, and Elisa Calpona, child protection manager and OiC chief of Child Protection at UNICEF Banglades, Shabnaaz Zahereen, child protection specialist at UNICEF Bangladesh, were present at the event.
Elisa Calpona, child protection manager and OiC chief of CP UNICEF Bangladesh, explained how to "Enhancing sustainabilit and scalability of online protection in Bangladesh”
Shuaib Mohammad from SEARCH Ltd shared the findings of his study titled, "An assessment of viewership of the online safety intervention of child protection, UNICEF, Dhaka"
Monira Hasan of UNICEF and Rasna Hasan, head of partnership and strategic projects at Grameenphone, presented the key learning from the program implementation.