Theprogramme includes online citizenship and safety skills trainingactivities for pupils and students nationwide to jointly build a safe andpositive Internet environment.
The“We Think Digital” programme is designed to raise awareness and equipstudents, parents and teachers with key skills to move beyond digital literacyinto responsible digital citizenship. The programme provides trainingcourses and educational materials on important skills such as how to protectdigital identities, critical thinking, fact-checking, and promoting respectfuland empathetic online discourse.
"WeThink Digital" builds on the success of the "Think Before YouShare" programme that Facebook launched in 2018 which equipped morethan 50,000 young people in 10 provinces with fundamental digital skills. Atthe end of 2019, Facebook conducted a pilot programme for "We ThinkDigital" in Vietnam which reached 244,813 junior and senior high schoolstudents and 1,277 teachers in 13 provinces and cities across Vietnam.
Theresponse from teachers and students to the pilot programme wasoverwhelmingly positive and the learning from the pilot has helped toshape the focus of the programme for the upcoming academic year. This workcontinued alongside Facebook’s partnership with ISDS last year to train 70leaders of gender based violence organisations onprotecting the safety of women online, and supporting and participating in the4th National Symposium on Sexuality, Health and Society to share insightson safe social media use.
“Withtens of millions of users in Vietnam, building a healthy, positive networkcommunity is always at the centre of our activities. To help studentsaccess digital citizenship and online security skills, "We ThinkDigital" aims to promote digital skills that will help users engage inpositive online behaviour and stay safe online. The insights ofthe pilot programme in 2019 and the strength of our collaborationwith the partners here today will allow us to engage and train thousands morestudents and teachers across Vietnam throughout the next year,” said NguyenPhuong Chi, Vietnam Public Policy Manager, Facebook.
Facebookis partnering with the University of Social Sciences and Humanities -Hanoi National University to adopt We Think Digital asa credit-earning course in the school's curriculum, with the aim oftraining for more than 5,300 students. In addition, Facebook is also workingwith HOCMAI Education System to develop a free trial digital skills course onHOCMAI's online learning platform that aims to educate 35,000 students oncritical digital skills.
The"We Think Digital" programme is a key component of the Safety andDigital Literacy pillar of the Facebook for Vietnam campaign. The pillarincludes programmes and partnerships to raise awareness about online safety andpromote digital skills needed to build a generation of strong citizens./.