Protecting young explorers in the digital space

New dangers

In 2018 one third of Internet users worldwide are children. Digital technology can be a wonderful learning tool, providing exciting education and development opportunities for young people but it also increases the dangers they face, creating new risks like grooming, misuse of private information and online abuse. Cyberbullying is a serious global problem with 28 countries around the world reporting high levels of online persecution towards children between 2011 and 2018.

Serious about safety

In Argentina, the mobile phone is the most common way of surfing the Internet among young people. Mobile operator Telecom Argentina takes children’s safety very seriously so they decided to create a space online where kids could be taught how to use the Internet responsibly.

Their place

Nuestro Lugar, which means ‘Our place’, is an online hub specially designed to appeal to kids whilst still educating them on serious issues. Through interactive games, animated videos, comic strips and stand up comedy children are taught a whole range of skills to protect their online experience such as how to surf the web safely, change their social network privacy settings, the meaning of grooming and cyberbullying and how to behave in certain situations. The program also helps teachers to discover the best digital tools for the classroom and encourages children to create online content to boost self-expression and inclusion.

Well trained

Since its creation in 2015, Nuestro Lugar has achieved a lot. There have been over 200 workshops in more than 30 Argentine cities, training over 13,000 students and 2,000 teachers. The results are studied annually to work out how to make the program more effective and inclusive. In this way, Nuestro Lugar constantly evolves and improves with every year that passes.

“I entered the Nuestro Lugar meme contest where we had to make a meme about why it’s good to be safe on the Internet. I love cats so mine was a photo of a proud looking kitten with the line, ‘My password is very strong.’ I was one of the ten finalists out of nearly 400 entries .”

Isabella Soria, aged 12, Argentina