The National Youth Council (NYC) in conjunction with Unesco on Wednesday launched a Media and Information Literacy (MIL) project in Windhoek.
The project is funded by the Japanese Government and aims to educate and empower the youth and youth-led organisations on the importance of media information and how to use social media information correctly.
Speaking at the launch, Unesco Representative to Namibia Djaffar Moussa-Elkadhum said the project originated from the World Press Freedom Day hosted earlier this year in Windhoek, which celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration.
“The youth will get awareness on how to use media platforms (mainly social media information) responsibly and will be trained by means of online training, workshops and webinars to navigate the digitalised information ecosystem,” he said.
The Unesco representative said the Windhoek Declaration underlined the importance of information within the online media environment, amongst others the steps to ensure the economic viability of news media, mechanisms for ensuring transparency of internet companies and enhancing media and information literacy capacities that will enable people to recognise, value, defend and demand journalism as a vital part of information and as a public good.
He noted that the young generation is the largest demographic that uses internet to access and disseminate information, which is why MIL will help the youth to use internet as a tool to assess information received from different social media platforms before sharing it with their networks and minimise circulation of fabricated statements.
NYC Executive Chairperson Sharonice Busch at the same event said the MIL project’s vision is to enable youth to make informed decisions, become actively involved in wideranging societal affairs and be the change makers in their professional fields.
She added that it allows young people to become engaged citizens and responsible decision-makers by evaluating the source, context, message and medium within which it is received.
“The project will empower youth with practical skills to learn to think critically, become smart consumer of products and information; recognise point of views; create media content responsibly; and to identify the role of the media in the culture and the author’s goal,” Busch said.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency
