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Today over 90 countries are celebrating Safe Internet Day. This year already the 2nd time on this occasion Orange Armenia, jointly with the Safe Internet Committee of Armenia, coordinated by the Media Education Center NGO, has initiated the large-scale project “Safe Internet Armenia 2013.” In the scope of this one-month project about 300 teachers from 150 schools will be trained and over 3000 pupils and students with pedagogical education will participate in an open lesson. This year a special focus is put on the awareness and education of parents on safe internet use, who will be provided the chance to participate in workshops at schools dedicated to the mentioned topic.

“As the major mobile internet provider in Armenia, we care about providing to our customers the keys to safe internet use, protecting their information and hardware as well as their children from inappropriate content. However, we are not limiting ourselves to simply offering needed products and solutions and as a responsible company we are happy to join this large-scale educational project,” said Francis Gelibter, the CEO of Orange Armenia.

Advocating safe internet use, since last year Orange has been not only supporting trainings and seminars to make everybody aware of the topic and providing practical information, but also, in cooperation with Kaspersky Labs company, already since last year Orange made available to its customers Kaspersky Internet Security that includes improved protection for children that use your PC to maximally protect them from inappropriate online content. Many Orange customers are already using it.

“More and more children start using internet at early age. Still, children under 12 do not have critical thinking skills to make choices when surfing, playing and learning on the internet, so before this age parents should permanently participate in their internet activities,” said Narine Khachatryan, the Deputy Director of the Media Education Center NGO.

Studies show that those teenagers whose families do not define rules for internet use are two times more likely to enter sites with inappropriate content. All those concerned about the nature and safety of the content their children are exposed to on the internet can visit www.safe.am, where necessary information and advice on safe internet use can be found in Armenian. Over 10,000 educational sites have been developed and a base containing 3000 links of safe educational sites has been created.

As a reminder, last year in the scope of the same project 300 teachers from Yerevan and RA marzes were trained, and over 6000 pupils, instead of the anticipated 5000, participated in an open lesson. Since the launch of the project www.safe.am has been visited by over 7000 users, safe internet game has been opened over 5700 times and the Internet literacy handbooks and parent guides have been downloaded over 3800 times.

The “Safe Internet” project is dedicated to International Safe Internet Day, celebrated since 2004 on the 2nd day of the 2nd week of the 2nd month of each year. The pan-European INSAFE initiative, which is enlarging its borders year by year, is gathering people together to combat unlawful, harmful and irrelevant content.