News

Between 8 and 12 September 2022, an international youth exchange took place in Plovdiv with the participation of 40 young people from Bulgaria and Norway. Young people from both countries were trained together in the programme "Youth in Action". The programme is developed by representatives of the Youth centres in Plovdiv, Stara Zagora, Vratsa and Dobrich, the Applied Research and Communications Fund - coordinator of the Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre, the Norwegian organization "Norsensus Mediaforum" and the program operator of the program “Local Development, Poverty Reduction and Enhanced Inclusion of Vulnerable Groups”.

An international conference, dedicated to counteracting fake news and anti-Roma misinformation was held in Sofia on the 13th of July. The conference is part of the CARE for TRUTH project, co-financed by the European Union "Rights, Equality and Citizenship" Programme (2014-2020) and implemented by the Applied Research and Communications Fund, coordinator of the Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre, together with the C.E.G.A. Foundation (project coordinator), the Center for the Study of Democracy, and the Roma Lom Foundation.

Between 15th and 17th of June, the first meeting of the members of the Youth Panel of the Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre and the young volunteers from the Directorate "Preventions", Varna was conducted. Together they participated in a series of training sessions, preparing them for peer trainers on the topic of prevention of child sexual exploitation online as well as other major online risks.

On June 15, the Media Literacy Coalition presented the results of the first national survey on digital-media skills of high school students in Bulgaria (the Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre is one of the founding members and an active participant of the Coalition).

Between 30 April and 3 May, Milena Radoytseva, a member of the Youth Panel at the Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre and the representative of Bulgaria to the Eurochild Children's Council, took part in the first in-person meeting of young people in Brussels since the pandemic started. She was accompanied by the Centre’s Youth Participation Coordinator Dr Emanuil Georgiev. At the meeting, the current composition of the Eurochild Children's Council, in which the girl participated, passed the baton to the new ECC members.

On 28th and 29th of April, experts from the Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre organised a training for 25 young people aged 14-18 years on the topic of the prevention of online sexual exploitation of children. The participants are volunteers at Directorate “Preventions” – Varna and were trained to become peer trainers.