In Rome, the ‘Compasses for Safe Navigation’ event brings together dialogue between adults and the creativity of young children to promote the responsible use of technology.
A magical creature that stops children when they spend too much time on video games, forcing them to play outdoors… is one of the creations that a group of seven-year-olds presented at the Villa Lazzaroni theatre, at the end of the Compasses for Safe Navigation event. The event was organised on 5 November at the venue on Via Appia Nuova 522 in Rome by various parents’ associations, in collaboration with the Fondazione Mondo Digitale and the Postal Police. Whilst the adults discussed the topic of Digital Agreements in the auditorium, children and young people aged 7 to 12 took part in a workshop led by educators from the Fondazione Mondo Digitale. The session began with an interactive training session to discover, through challenges and real-life scenarios, how to recognise suspicious messages, protect their passwords and distinguish reliable information from false information. It was a way of learning the rules of online safety through play and collaboration. From learning the rules, the participants then moved on to the creative phase with ‘The Museum of Objects from the Future’, a design fiction workshop that invited the young participants to imagine themselves in the year 2040. In this possible future, everyone knows where their personal data ends up, fake news is immediately recognisable, and video games are fun without taking up all their free time. Drawings, names and descriptive cards gave shape to an imaginary museum of solutions designed to make technology safer, more transparent and more respectful of people, which were presented at the end of the afternoon to an audience of parents.
At the same time, the adults discussed how to guide children and young people in their use of smartphones, social media and video games without leaving them to face the risks of the internet alone, whilst working together to counter the trend of introducing young children to the digital world too early. The initiative was launched by a group of parents from the Appio Latino neighbourhood (Municipality VII) who, after attending a meeting on Community Digital Pacts at the Teatro Ghione on 10 October, decided to bring this experience to their own neighbourhood. A shared need that quickly evolved into a network for discussion and participation. As Maria Elena Fusacchia, of Associazione 303, recalled, “Last year, an awareness-raising process began thanks to meetings with the Fondazione Mondo Digitale. Over time, interest grew and led to an ongoing dialogue, fuelled by meetings with neuropsychiatrists, psychologists and educators. A WhatsApp group was set up, growing from just a few families to around 200 participants. It was this success that led to the realisation of just how important it is to discuss these issues”. Our colleague Davide Grillo outlined the proposal for a Digital Pact for the Appio Latino community, which participants were able to contribute to via an online form.
Each association present then undertook to bring the initiative for a shared document to their own community – the first step on a journey that will involve awareness-raising meetings in various neighbourhoods, with the involvement of schools, families and experts. This journey is not intended to be limited to a single event, but to support the educational community over time.
On stage, contributions were given in turn by Francesca Aversa from the Agenda Mastroianni association, Moira Calamandrei from the Genitori Giardinieri association, Martina Adami from the Anita association and Raffaella Scozzafava from the Manzoni Pascoli association.
“Being able to meet in a venue so symbolic for the 7th Municipal District – which has been redeveloped and made available to the public – is doubly important because it demonstrates the neighbourhood’s vitality through its initiatives,” commented Matteo Svolacchia, chair of the Schools Committee for Rome’s 7th Municipal District.
The representative of the Postal Police, Giovanni Camarda, also drew attention to the responsibility of adults, emphasising how important it is to involve families in prevention activities. This need stems from day-to-day experience in schools: whilst large numbers of pupils attend online safety sessions, reaching parents is much more difficult. Recalling an initiative that had involved around two thousand pupils but only about fifty adults, Camarda highlighted how parents’ concerns mainly centre on the physical world, but fall short when it comes to online life: “The risk,” he observed, “is that adults underestimate what happens on social media and video-game platforms because young people are physically safe, perhaps in their own bedrooms. There are many risks and dangers on the internet that parents aren’t even aware of.”
The presentation also raised a fundamental educational issue: before entrusting a smartphone to a child or teenager, they must be taught how to use it, just as is the case with other tools that entail responsibility, such as cars. The presentation by Nicoletta Vulpetti, a trainer at the Fondazione Mondo Digitale, focused in particular on the theme of guidance, exploring the value of agreements between parents and children as tools for dialogue and fostering responsibility. Marta Pietrelli, a project officer at the Foundation, presented Vivi Internet, al meglio, the programme created by Google and promoted by the Fondazione Mondo Digitale to develop digital citizenship skills and encourage safe and responsible use of the internet. This event will serve as a springboard for further collaboration and opportunities for discussion.
