Recently, we had the privilege of embarking on an exciting journey through “Online Safety in the Digital Era”, a unique experience that promised to broaden our horizons and deepen our understanding of the dark side of social media. By our side we had young people from different countries of Europe who share the same interest in the topic. The group consisted of participants who had more expertise, some had real life experience and the others were interested to gain every bit of knowledge they could. This was the reason for creating great chemistry between everyone, which made the act of non-formal education even easier.
The first thing we tackled was establishing the different methods that people use in order to hurt someone or complete a goal. After a couple of workshops we agreed that the most used methods in the digital world are: cyberbullying, hate speech on social media and spreading misinformation.
Next on the agenda was exchanging positive and negative practices that are used in our countries when we face these problems. For us this was a great opportunity to learn about strategies that are used in the European Union and maybe in the future work on implementation in our society. Another interesting thing we learned was the fact that Estonia is at the top of how to handle the digital world, so it gives us hope that a small country can perform great if they work on it.
One thing that we got introduced to was the method “Newspaper theater”. It was a unique experience because we got to act in front of an audience. For some of us it was our first time acting, so it was challenging, but we were up for the challenge and we did a great job. At the end, thanks to CET Macedonia and Erasmus+ we came back with new knowledge, lifelong friends and memories to share.
