February 25, 2020: CODE PAKISTAN and NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, organized a one-day training on Digital Citizenship and the Responsible Use of Social Media at the National Incubation Center (NIC) at NED University. As part of the activity, Facebook certified trainers were engaged to provide participants—comprised of student society members—an extensive training session on the responsible use of social media. The session educated students on the importance of managing digital footprints, protecting digital identity, communicating respectfully, practicing positive engagement, critical thinking in the online and offline space, and tips for spotting fake news. The students took keen interest in learning more about protecting their digital identity and shared their own personal experiences of facing various online challenges.
The training on digital citizenship was an addition to the previously conducted two-day training on “How to Effectively Design an Online Awareness Campaign.” The overall three-day training concluded with a post-training knowledge assessment, which was used to identify 12 trainers from amongst the students to further conduct the training on Digital Citizenship and the Responsible Use of Social Media for the benefit of the rest of the student body of NED University. The remaining participants of the trainings were divided into 8 groups and tasked with creating and designing an online awareness campaign around an idea of their choice. The final ideas presented in the shape of 8 social media campaigns would set the stage for replicating the programme in other universities.
The exercises subsequent to the trainings will strengthen and consolidate the knowledge acquired by the students through the training sessions and empower them to apply their understanding in practice to promote positive and tolerant messaging.
CODE PAKISTAN’s collaboration with NED University of Engineering and Technology is part of CODE PAKISTAN’s ongoing engagement with the youth of Pakistan studying in universities across the country with an aim to counter on-campus violent extremism. Under CODE PAKISTAN’s Youth Outreach at Universities for Countering Violent Extremism (YOU-CVE), CODE PAKISTAN has already undertaken extensive consultations with faculties and students of various universities from across Pakistan. The process resulted in action plans for implementation on university campuses for countering violent extremism. The idea of the ongoing collaboration between CODE PAKISTAN and NED University actually originated from the consultative session with the faculty and students of NED University of Engineering and Technology in November 2018.