Young Digital Leaders is an educational programme that empowers young people across Europe aged 12-16 to apply digital citizenship, critical thinking and media literacy skills online. Based around a core curriculum that addresses cross-cutting harms such as disinformation and targeted abuse, the programme supports young people to recognise the positive contributions they can make to their digital communities.

In addition to the curriculum, ISD have developed a guide for parents and a Digital Citizenship Education Programming Toolkit for NGOs, enabling them to develop and expand digital resilience beyond the classroom.

To date, ISD has partnered with civil society organisations in Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania and Sweden to engage a spectrum of students, teachers and parents. These include Kommon Ground (Sweden); Associazione Artistica Culturale (A Rocca) (Italy); Action Synergy (Greece); Rose Valley (Bulgaria); and the Group of European Youth for Change (GEYC) (Romania).

In just two years, the programme has reached over 10,000 students, 550 teachers and 230 parents across the region. Furthermore, our 2019 evaluation indicated that:

• 97% of parents and carers felt better able to help their children deal with online safety challenges having attended a YDL session;
• 98% of teachers who attended a training thought the YDL programme is helpful to teach digital citizenship;
• 94% of students felt the workshop taught new knowledge and skills.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the programme’s French curriculum was adapted to provide educators with additional guidance and activities that enable them to discuss online disinformation, stereotyping, and hatred via a public health lens.

All the Young Digital Leaders resources are available to download below in English, Bulgarian, French, Greek and Romanian.