The klicksafe youth advisory board
You are the voice! Talking to young people, not about them.
Since 2009, klicksafe has organized the so-called Youth Panel at several schools in Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg, a youth advisory board in which students between the ages of 14 and 17 participate. Many of the young people involved are also active as media scouts and media mentors at their schools. klicksafe maintains a regular exchange with the young people and the pedagogical staff in charge at the schools. Among other things, monthly meetings are held at which the young people provide information about digital topics that concern them on a daily basis. What current potential dangers do they recognize on the Internet? What dangers do they see for younger students, for example? How do they represent themselves in social media? What do they want for the web in the future? etc.?
All results and findings from the joint work flow into teaching or information materials or are published on the klicksafe website or within campaigns such as Safer Internet Day.
Also on a European level, a lively exchange of all Youth Panels takes place at annual meetings. As part of the Safer Internet Network, klicksafe nominates representatives from Germany.
Since 2021, a member of our youth panel has been a klicksafe youth juror for the Data Protection Media Award of our cooperation partner Berufsverband der Datenschutzbeauftragten Deutschlands (BvD) e.V. (Professional Association of Data Protection Officers in Germany), which judges submissions and awards the klicksafe Youth Award on the topic of data protection.
Better Internet For Kids (BIK) Youth Platform
At the European level, there is also a lively exchange between all Youth Panels at annual meetings. Under the umbrella of Better Internet for Kids (BIK), many smaller projects, campaigns and initiatives have emerged, all with the goal of enabling a better Internet for children and young people. The Bik youth website is the central point of contact for young people from all over Europe, where they can exchange and share their views on building a better Internet. For example, campaign videos are produced annually for Safer Internet Day, or digital demand papers are written to be forwarded to European government officials. As part of the Safer Internet Network, klicksafe nominates representatives from Germany as so-called Youth Ambassadors.
Read more about the work of the BIK Youth-Panel on the BIK Youth-Platform.
What the BIK Youth-Panel has put together for the "European Year of Youth" 2022, you can read in this PDF.
Materials in cooperation with the Youth Panel
All results and findings from the joint work flow into teaching or information materials or are published within campaigns such as Safer Internet Day. Special highlights included the development and programming of the cyber-bullying first-aid app by young people from the Youth Panel, as well as their involvement in the flyer "Tips for digital (survival)", in which young people were the mentors for a media literacy topic area. Every year on Safer Internet Day, the "Youth Talk" takes place, an authentic format in which young people have their say on current topics in short videos. In this context, members of the Youth Panel provided information on the respective annual topic "Who makes my opinion?" and "Fit for democracy - strong for society" in two video series for Safer Internet Day 2021 and Safer Internet Day 2022. In the summer of 2022, young people from the klicksafe Youth Panel and the Youth Panel Saferinternet.at from Austria jointly created an interactive quiz on the topic of "in-game purchases". The quiz was published to coincide with the start of the computer and video games trade fair Gamescom in Cologne.
News from the Youth Panel
Youth Panel at Safer Internet Forum 2022
Feb 07, 2023 | The video offers an exclusive look at the preparation and execution of two events: Better Internet for Kids Youth Panel 2022 and Better Internet for Kids Youth Ambassadors Advisory Group for the Safer Internet Forum. Both events took place on October 27, 2022.
Report from the "Safer Internet Forum 2022" in Brussels
11/11/2022 | Report by Manahil Ahmed (Better Internet for Kids Youth Ambassador)
Once again, a wonderful year full of events around the topic of "Safety on the Internet" has passed. But especially valuable and unique was the annual "Safer Internet Forum" in Brussels! There I and spent more than 40 young people from all over Europe three wonderful days preparing for the big conference. As I am already one of the more experienced BIK Youth Ambassadors, I gave my input this year as a member of the "SIF Youth Advisory Group". Together with the "Panellists", we put on an unforgettable show and enlivened the conference with over 400 on- and offline participants*. Furthermore, we invited two influencers who shared with us their journey and the problems they encountered on social media: Jacob from Ireland and Lijana Risen from Germany (of course, there was still time left to take some pictures afterwards ;-)).
And as suddenly as the journey started, it has already come to an end ... An emotional farewell could not be missing either.
All in all, we put together a successful conference that no one will forget in a hurry!
Presentation of the Youth Media Protection Index 2022
20.10.2022 | Report by Kathrin Morasch (klicksafe Youth Panel)
Last week, FSM e.V. presented its Youth Media Protection Report for the second time after five years. Afterwards there was a discussion and an attempt to interpret the results. I was allowed to contribute the insight from the perspective of the BIK Youth Ambassadors in this panel. This perspective was especially important because there was a lot of focus on the topic of parent-child relationships and how parents can implement youth media protection. It was exciting to see that since 2017 there has been a shift in the weighting among parents between protection- and participation-oriented basic attitudes. For example, only 71% instead of 90% of parents now say that protecting children and young people is more important than easy access to all online content.
What is exciting for us Youth Ambassadors and our work is that both the surveyed group of 13-14 year olds and 15-16 year olds rate their general online competence better than that of their parents. This is exactly where we and our offerings play an important role as well. While it's nice and important that parents also take their role in helping children deal with media seriously, empowering young people also plays the central role. The peer-to-peer approach we take with our projects is elemental to this. It is super important that projects such as the "media scouts" supervised by klicksafe are expanded and promoted at schools. Far too often, dangers related to the Internet are still only handled through bans and restrictions. In keeping with the motto of this year's Safer Internet Forum, "protect, empower, respect," we need to ensure that the Internet is used safely. In addition, we must also pay attention to the areas in which modern media offer enormous potential and general skills are created. To do this, we can draw on various pillars: parents, teachers, Safer Internet Centers, but above all ourselves and other young media-savvy people.
To use the words of one of the panelists and researchers in the study, we need to slay our online gommemode, digga. And yes, that's really a very cringe-worthy roundup of the proposed Youth Words of the Year ...
Explore Science - "Digital Worlds" in Mannheim
27.06.2022 | Getting young people excited about scientific topics and promoting networking between scientific institutions and schools - these are the goals of Explore Science. The natural science experience days in Mannheim took place from 22 to 26.06.2022 and have been sponsored by the Klaus Tschira Foundation since 2006. The youth advisory board of klicksafe was also involved.