In celebration of International Day of Education and International Day of Women and Girls in Science, Forest Interactive kickstarted a collaboration with Youth Empowerment Support (YES) to spread awareness about the importance of education.
Malaysia-based talents paid a visit to Somali Refugee Community Center, managed by YES, to conduct an interactive two-hour workshop with the students on the fundamentals of digital citizenship; covering online privacy, security, and ethical behaviour. The Somali Refugee Community Center is a venue that supports refugee youths in addressing the many needs and challenges they face while living in Malaysia.
Malaysia-based Forest Interactive talents introducing themselves to the students at the Somali Refugee Community Center
The interactive workshop was conducted by a team of passionate volunteers who engaged the students aged between 8 to 12 with a variety of activities such as reading and understanding the Do’s and Dont’s of a responsible digital citizen, highlighting aspects of Personal Information, Pishing, Digital Footprint, Catfishing, Cyberbullying, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), and Reporting Abuse.
Besides, volunteers sharing facts of real-life scenarios on digital citizenship, the students were also handed worksheets to work on being Internet Alert, hypothetical scenarios faced online, Code Cracking, and Practicing Empathy as well as reflect upon what they had learned during the workshop. Through this learning session, the audience had the opportunity to learn on how to create strong passwords and to understand the importance of having one.
Nisa Saharuddin, Community Engagement Lead at Forest Interactive Foundation said “Forest Interactive Foundation firmly believes that access to education is a fundamental human right that should be available to all. To achieve this goal, we collaborate with organizations such as Youth Empowerment Support (YES) and work together to develop effective programs. To ensure positive outcomes, we carefully select volunteers from the industry who possess extensive knowledge and a solid background to deliver the best messages to the students. Given that young people nowadays are exposed to diverse influences, both good and bad, it is our duty to educate and nurture them with appropriate knowledge to prepare and safeguard them for the technology-driven world of the future.”
To ensure maximum participation, stationary sets were provided to the children during the workshop, and all extra supplies were donated to the center as part of the donation effort of this campaign.
Mohammad Abdi, founder of Youth Empowerment Support (YES) and CEO of Somali Refugee Community in Malaysia expressed, “We are delighted to express our heartfelt appreciation towards the passion, drive, and commitment demonstrated by the volunteers who lend a helping hand in educating and imparting knowledge the refugee children.”
“Through this collaboration, we strongly believe that these children will greatly benefit, as we recognize the crucial importance of equipping them with the necessary skills and knowledge to thrive in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape.”
The Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs) covered in this CSR initiative are No Poverty (1), Quality Education (4), and Reducing Inequalities (10). For more information on Forest Interactive’s sustainability initiatives, visit forestcares.org.
Are you an NGO looking for partners or do you know of communities that need contributions? Contact us at [email protected].
About Youth Empowerment Support (YES)
Youth empowerment support was established in March 2019 by a group of twelve (15) youths. 7 girls and 8 boys. The main reason that the YES team was established was because of seeing many youths committing suicides and inequality happening in the community. Their purpose is to support their fellow refugee youths to be able to address the many needs and challenges refugees face in Malaysia. Youth empowerment support is a mixed group of different ethnicities, age, backgrounds, life experiences, and more, but they all have a common goal that unites them all. and that is to give back to their refugee communities, notably to all refugee youths, and any family in need, emergency situations, health, raising awareness and designing programs for the youth.
About Forest Interactive
Founded in 2006, Forest Interactive develops scalable mobile platforms to connect mobile operators, content providers, and game publishers with their subscribers. With over 15 years of industry experience, Forest Interactive has expanded to include a diverse workforce of 20+ nationalities in 15 regional offices.
Delivering content subscription services, digital voucher and e-commerce platforms, and mobile apps for all ages, Forest Interactive operates in more than 30 countries, servicing 90+ mobile operators and 100+ content partners with the capacity to reach over one billion subscribers worldwide. To learn more, visit forest-interactive.com
