By Abdou Mbye
The Open Media Centre (OMC) in collaboration with the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) recently piloted a two-day media literacy training for 20 senior secondary school students from all regions of the country at the Kotu Senior Secondary School Hall.
Funded by UNESCO, the training was meant to empower young Gambians to become responsible, critical and ethical citizens in their online engagement, as part of efforts to address hate speech and information disorder (misinformation, disinformation and mal-information). The intervention is part of the UNESCO MIL CLICK initiative under the project: Countering hate speech, promoting responsible digital citizenship.
Addressing the participants, Head of Media Monitoring and Fact Checking Unit at Malagen, and project coordinator for the OMC, Mr Kebba Jeffang posited that the Training of Trainers (ToT) was premised on the need to orient students on how to judiciously use and share information on social media, as well as protect them from cybercrime and bullying. He further stated that students should be very cautious of information sharing on the digital landscape as some might be detrimental. He implored on participants to be ambassadors in their various regions and to serve as regional focal persons in the upcoming step-down trainings.
“We cannot say that students should not use social media but what we can do is to protect you by giving you guidelines on the proper ways of handling and sharing information. There is lots of useful information on the internet but there are some that are implicative as well. We have lot of scammers on social media. We have seen people who lost some opportunities because of their activities on social media,” Mr Jeffang elucidated.
The UNESCO national project officer for the Gambia, Njenarr Yassin Jeng stressed that peace building is at the core of this project. She warned that information disorder in the forms of disinformation; misinformation and hate speech have all the potential to destroy a society.
According to her, the goal is to empower young people, especially students, to develop the competence needed to critically engage with information from online and traditional media.
Representing the Principal of Kotu SSS, Mr Alimamay Dumbuya, Head of English Department and Press Club Coordinator at Kotu SSS alluded that the training was meant to empower participants to have critical mind as part of Malagen’s continual efforts to discouraging hate speech. He went on to advise students to be very attentive during the training as they are expected to implement the knowledge gained at their respective regions. He further thanked UNESCO for bankrolling the programme as well as all other partners for the support and collaboration.
Mr Bakary Baldeh, the Press Club Coordinator at Soma SSS noted the significance of the training.
Mama Sanyang, a student representative from Fatoto Senior Secondary School Press Club, attested that she had learnt a lot from the training, singling out data management and avoiding hate speech as most significant skills she gained from the training.
“I really learn a lot from the training especially on data management and hate speech. I have learnt how to protect my data and personal information and how to manage my privacy menu on social media,” she affirmed.
Ms Sanyang thus hailed the OMC and MoBSE for giving her the opportunity to attend such an interesting training.
