• update 11/5/11: TBYC [Teacher-Barangay-Youth-Church] Approach
• update 7/16/11: GMA 7 embraced our advocacy and launched   “think before you click” campaign
  
• update 4/2/11: keynote presentation for the iblog7 talk is uploaded  HERE
• update 3/31/11: We will be giving away WSPH mugs to those who can answer our trivia Qs.

On Saturday, I will be one of the speakers of  iBlog7, and I will share our strategies in promoting internet safety, cyber wellness and responsible use of social web in the Philippines, I will not  preempt my talk on April 2,  but we will also discuss it here and share the keynote presentation too.

But with this post, allow me to set the tone of our discussion on Saturday by sharing with you the reasons why we are doing what we are doing :). By understanding this, we can proceed directly with our main points.

Based from last data of internet world stats, PH has 29.7 M internet users,  and 90% of them are into Social Networking sites according to comscore.com. Socialbakers.com, on the other hand, claimed that 19% of Filipino kids ages 13-17 yrs old  [there are kids below 13 years , though, that already have an FB account]  are into Facebook.

Furthermore, Yahoo! commissioned Synovate about the media behavior of young Asians and it was interesting to note how Filipinos are doing compare with it’s neighbors.

Filipino youth ranks #3 on online games and #4 on internet. Likewise, Norton Online Family Safety, a tool that help parents in guiding and monitoring their kids online activity, said Filipino kids were exposed to:

These stats are enough to prompt us to do something. Add to that is the undocumented online harassment and cyber crimes that are not moving because of lack of appropriate laws. As our contribution to society, we are the 1st in PH who did the roadshows for cyber wellness dubbed “watcha webtrap“.  The first in PH to established a niche blog and run a synchronized social media campaign to promote cyber wellness and internet safety, thus, winning the 2010 Best Blog in Advocacy. We are also the first in PH to be recognized and included in the list of Global Resources Information Directory and Family Safety Online Institute

We reached out to parents, school admins, teachers, youth and professionals and educate them about cyber wellness and internet safety. Since our 1st seminar on July 10, 2010, our roadshow held a total of 20 seminars, with 2 provincial sorties. We also gave general cyber wellness tips and online reputation management  in conventions and fora.

We believed that by educating Filipinos, we will prevent cyber harassment and cyber crimes. If parents, professionals, school teachers/ admin and youth are properly taught, and private corporations and government will work hand in hand in cyber wellness campaign, incidents of stealing identity, cyber bullying, cyber boso, cyber stalking and other cyber crimes will be minimized.

The advocacy also gained mileage thru TV and radio guestings, articles on major broadsheets like Manila Bulletin, countless write-up on various online portals including ABS CBN, Yahoo! and LoQal.

This year, we intend to bring the advocacy to the next level. To make this a reality, we entered into partnership with Yahoo Philippines for  Yahoo Safely. With the collaboration, we believed that efforts will be synergized to bring about better results. Other groups that supported the advocacy, to name a few are, Enthropia Philippines sponsored the new domain. From www.websafetyforparents.org, the new home of Web Safety PH is now www.websafety.com.ph. To compliment that, Solidhosting generously accommodated our hosting needs.

This is it for now,  I will share more on my talk, see you guys on iblog7.