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Digital Champions meet to plan the year ahead and represent the Digital Leader Community – Part 2

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Published: 3rd April 2020

The Childnet Digital Champions are Jess, Bella, Maryam, Niah, Oyinkan, Cosima and Aimee. They are a group of Digital Leaders from across the country who were successful in applying to be ambassadors of the Digital Leaders Programme, representing the Digital Leader community and supporting the Childnet team. The Digital Champions had their kick-off day on 23rd January at Facebook offices and the day was a chance for the young people to get to know each other, find out what to expect in their role as a Digital Champion and lots more!

Here is part two of two blog posts written by the Digital Champions which explains what they got up to on the kick-off day and what to expect from them in the coming months. Hear from Aimee and Maryam in this blog post and look back at part one to hear from the other Digital Champions.

  • How did we become Digital Champions?

Aimee: We all had heard about the opportunity from various places, I received an email about it but I know it was also in the newsletters as well. We first did a survey answering questions about our involvement with the Digital Leaders Programme, our aspirations and our inspirations. Not long after we were chosen for interviews where we answered a few more questions about us as well as what parts of the Digital Leaders Programme we wanted to improve and finished with an activity where we had to plan a Safer Internet Day workshop. At the end of this, the successful applicants all received emails saying we had become Digital Champions which was incredibly exciting! Personally I found the process really fun and I would recommend every interested Digital Leader should try it next time.

  • What are you going to do as a Digital Champion in your school?

Maryam: As a Digital Champion in my school, I think what’s mainly important for us right now is settling the new students and new Digital Leaders into what the role entails. We aren’t only trying to combat internet safety, but internet equality – after all, it is a basic human right and is something that we all deserve, regardless of being offline or online. Currently my school are developing a scheme trying to combat this and spreading the message to our Year 7s and other younger years. Our inspiration mainly stemmed from not only my original goal as a Digital Champion – which was wanting a more positive internet, but what I heard from the other Digital Champions during the kick-off day. Their ideas of equality really struck something in me and has given me the courage to share it with my school. This is an on-going project and I hope that we are able to not only represent this for Safer Internet Day, but for all of our time at school.