Philippine Information Agency promotes cyberwellness for youth with #cyberREADI campaign

• #cyberREADI is part of the ASEAN-Japan Media and Information Literacy for the Youth Project
• Philippine Information Agency (PIA) spearheading the campaign which aims to promote cyber wellness among the youth of ASEAN
• PIA has also released various multimedia materials and resources online to further promote digital literacy

With the rise of the internet, different hazards in the online world have been rampant nowadays and younger people have always been the vulnerable target of these harms. Filipino youth are likely susceptible to this danger since we spend the most amount of time online as revealed in recent studies.

Among the most worrisome cybercrime issues in the country are cyberbullying, cybersex, identity theft, illegal access to data, online threats and libel. Sadly, these issues have been some of the arising problems faced by the youth.

The Philippine Information Agency (PIA) is now at work with their #cyberREADI campaign to spread cyberwellness among the Filipino youth.

This campaign is part of the ASEAN-Japan Media and Information Literacy (MIL) for the Youth Project which the PIA is spearheading in partnership with the InfoComm Media Development Authority of Singapore and with funding support from the Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund (JAIF).

The campaign official logo and branding focused on #cyberREADI – with READI representing the five (5) ASEAN Core Values on Digital Literacy Responsibility, Empathy, Authenticity, Discernment, and Integrity adopted by the ASEAN Ministers Responsible for Information in May 2018. These values served as a framework for digital literacy programs in the region.

With the help of the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication Foundation Inc. (UPCMCFI), the PIA has also released various multimedia materials and resources developed to highlight the importance and urgency of promoting digital literacy among the Filipino youth.
These materials include short videos about the topics of Cyberbullying, Online gaming, Online dating, Online scam, Online privacy, Internet addiction, and others.

H.E. Kung Phoak, Deputy Secretary-General for ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community said that the youth is expected to become more responsible digital citizens with the help of the timely relevant Cyber-Wellness campaign.

“There is a need to build information resiliency among the youth and protect them from the risk of getting misled by fake news and misinformation. With enhanced media and information literacy, the youth is expected to become smart consumers and responsible producers of online information. Through this project, we hope young people would better understand, inquire, create, communicate and think critically while digitally engaged” he said.