Speakers at the Child Online Safety school awareness programme of Grameenphone pointed out the necessity of child safety to reap the benefits of the internet in a session at Sir John Wilson School in Dhaka on Sunday.
The session was attended by Grameenphone CEO Michael Patrick Foley and Sabrina Shahed, principal of Sir John Wilson School, along with Mahmud Hossain, chief corporate affairs officer and Rasna Hasan, head of sustainability of Grameenphone.
Speaking at the event, the Grameenphone CEO said: “Access to internet and the youngster’s ability to use it confidently is very important as the world is in the midst of a digital revolution. Therefore, we are trying to create awareness among schoolgoing children around the country and offer them lessons on how to be safe on internet and use it responsibly.”
“As a school, it is our responsibility to protect and guide our students which only can happen through dialogues. We have been talking about internet safety for some time now with parents. Today’s [Sunday's] initiative is a first of its kind and we are thankful to Grameenphone for taking the lead which will make our students more conscious of the dangers and smarter in using gazettes and technology,” said Sabrina Shahed.
A survey conducted by Telenor found that half of the students who have access to internet are likely to encounter cyberbullying or unsafe online situations. However, any such unpleasant experience can easily be avoided with few simple preventive measures and common sense.
Therefore, awareness initiatives for young minds on online safety are very important.
The Child Online Safety programme has been designed to mainly raise awareness amongst school children on how to use internet securely with few simple guidelines.
Before this year’s programme, Grameenphone reached 80,000 children in 500 schools across the country with Brac through activations in schools and distribution of guidebooks on the safe and responsible use of the internet.
The programme has engaged over 50,000 students of more 240 schools across the country since September 2017.
Grameenphone operates the programme in association with Brac.