Released: Lagos, Nigeria – 9th February, 2018
The Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre (W.TEC) in conjunction with Facebook for the second time in a roll, marked 2018 Safer Internet Day on Wednesday, February 7th at New Era Girls’ Senior Secondary School, Surulere, Lagos, Nigeria.
The “Safer Internet Day” marked on Feb 6th is a day set aside to raise awareness for the empowerment of more people to using Internet technology towards community development.
The focus of Facebook for the Safer Internet Day is making the internet, safer for the youth.
To this effect, to mark the day in Nigeria, Facebook partnered with W.TEC to host a day of workshops and fun activities for secondary school students, through which the students will learn about how to be a civil citizen of the internet and learn the reality of internet safety in Nigeria. The global theme for SID 2018 been “Create, connect and share respect: A better Internet starts with you” in light with this, W.TEC’s event, featured sessions on Nigerian Internet laws and the Reality of Internet Safety In Nigeria these sessions were delivered under the theme for W.TEC’s SID event “Becoming A Civil Citizen Of The Internet: For A Better Internet For All”. This was organised for our youth to appreciate been law abiding on the internet and practice better safety as it affects everyone.
The programme had 10 schools in attendance, the host school, New Era Girls’ Senior Secondary School at Surulere, Lagos and select representatives from 9 neighbouring schools around Surulere area. Below is the list of schools which participated in the programme.
| School | Location | |
| 1 | New Era Girls’ Senior Secondary School (Host) | Surulere |
| 2 | New Era Girls’ Junior Secondary School | Surulere |
| 3 | Onitolo Community Senior High School | Surulere |
| 4 | Onitolo Community Junior High School | Surulere |
| 5 | Gbaja Girls’ Senior High School | Surulere |
| 6 | Gbaja Girls’ Junior High School | Surulere |
| 7 | Stadium Senior High School | Surulere |
| 8 | Stadium Junior High School | Surulere |
| 9 | Ajigbeda Girls’ Senior Grammar School | Surulere |
| 10 | Ajigbeda Girls’ Junior Grammar School | Surulere |
A total of 200 select male and female secondary school students, 15 teachers participated in the day long fun-filled learning experience of workshops and interactive activities.
The programme involved 2 major activities namely:
- A workshop, featuring two presentations, the first presentation was on learning more about Nigerian Internet laws/enforcement and social media community rules presented by (PIN) while the second presentation was on the reality of internet safety in Nigeria was presented by (CcHUB).
- Internet safety exercise the second session of the programme was an exciting internet safety exercise involving all participating students.
- Workshop: The presentations for the workshop sessions are courtesy of a high profile partnership between W.TEC with Paradigm Initiative of Nigeria (PIN) and Co-Creation Hub of Nigeria (CcHUB). The two partnering institutions are leading institutions for Nigerian internet policy formulation. W.TEC partnered with these organizations for the event in order to have impactful presentations delivered at the event. Paradigm Initiative of Nigeria (PIN) was represented at the event by its communications officer, Mr Sodiq Alabi while Co-Creation Hub of Nigeria (CcHUB) was represented at the event by its Digital Security Lead, Mr Emmanuel Okochu.
- The second session of the programme was an exciting internet safety exercise where all participating students wrote on sticky notes all what they have learnt on internet laws and internet safety measures. This they wrote and exchanged with each other severally in order for all of them to share knowledge with themselves in a fun way. The second exercise was a group exercise where participants in groups of their respective schools made a message against internet crimes, this was done in an exciting way when they presented their messages to the house. Posting your ideas of making the internet safer on the Safer Internet dream board.
Event Supporter – Facebook
The major supporter of the event by W.TEC for the second year in a roll is Facebook. In a drive to making Facebook and the internet, safer for our youth, Facebook partnered with W.TEC to mark the Safer Internet Day in Nigeria, as a result, the partnership has brought forth a massive impact on over 1,000 secondary school students in Lagos who have participated in organised workshops to mark the Safer Internet Day between 2017 and 2018.
Thanks to Facebook well-tailored materials and instructional videos on Facebook safety have been made available to students who have participated in the events, making available much needed knowledge on internet safety in Nigeria.
The objectives of this programme are:
- Strengthen knowledge and skills of Nigerian youth in driving for more youth to engage and use the internet positively and towards the socio – economic growth of the country.
- To teach our youth the innovative ways of using the Internet safely.
- To teach our youth to have a better understanding of the legal aspects to social media and the internet so as for them not to trample on the rights of others.
W.TEC intends for this event to be an annual affair, sustaining the drive for creating a generational change in the mind-set of our youth towards ICT.