Internet safety programme launches for Ndlambe pupils

The internet has become a vital teaching and learning tool — but it has also become a breeding ground for cyberbullying, hate speech, sexual exploitation, misinformation and financial scams.

While it’s important for anyone in the online space to understand digital safety and security, it is crucial for young people.

This is the basis of Global Leading Light Initiatives’ (GLLI’s) pupil-centred internet safety skills training programme, SurfSMART, which empowers children aged 10 to 18 to use the internet safely.

SurfSMART engages these teens and pre-teens along with their teachers, parents, and guardians in the 20-week programme.

GLLI, a non-profit organisation based at the StendenSA campus in

Port Alfred, has collaborated with other NPOs and the Eastern Cape department of education on a district level to train and provide materials to learner support agents (LSAs) and facilitators in selected schools across the Eastern Cape.

GLLI has partnered with the Talk of the Town and Ndlambe FM to bring this community-driven and culturally relevant internet safety intervention that targets pupils and their ecosystem to our community. SurfSMART provides this ecosystem with tools to use the internet safely.

Topics covered include dis/misinformation, hate speech and internet harassment. These are especially relevant as we approach Freedom Day and the 2024 National and Provincial Elections.

For more information contact Luthango Ngqokoqwane at 078-818-3605/ 046-624-1498.