In this blog, Saamya from the Childnet Youth Advisory Board looks at the Board’s residential in October.
In October, the Childnet Youth Advisory Board met for an exciting residential. Meeting the board was an experience I’ll never forget, every person was incredibly special and it was wonderful to meet like-minded people with similar opinions, but different and very interesting personalities. I learnt a large amount on the residential, through the workshops and about internet safety, but also through the people. I took away a great deal from the trip (not just chocolates!) but a fantastic experience and new friends. The residential was an opportunity I will never forget!
Along with getting to know each other, we participated in a series of workshops in order to come up with a final product, a resource on reliability that the Youth Advisory Board and Childnet can co-create. In prior meetings the board had to choose an idea for our toolkit that we can work on and we chose the topic of reliability. This topic consisted of frauds, scams and fake news on the internet as well as spotting AI generated headlines and deep fakes. We worked in groups to propose different ideas for resources and presented them on our last day to the CEO of Childnet and two people from the Nominet team. We all had many great ideas, such as a social media voice for Childnet, an interactive game to learn about dangers of the internet, a peer-to-peer resource and a memorable video.
Our activities during the residential itself were the most exciting part! On the first evening we ventured on a train to Liverpool Street to play immersive games. We split into teams and played against each other which was really fun, and allowed for a chance to get to know each other and show off our teamwork skills. On the second evening we took a relaxing boat ride along the Thames to Bankside Pier where we had a delicious dinner at a pizza restaurant!
My personal highlight of the whole trip was the VR experience we did on the second day. It was a very unique experience, and though it was very overwhelming, it was really enjoyable to participate and discuss the future of virtual reality and the metaverse. Another few small highlights of the trip were our warm up activities at the start of each workshop and early morning discussions at the breakfast table!
Across the next few months with the board, I am most looking forward to Safer Internet Day in February and completing our toolkit. From the residential it’s clear to see how well the Board works together, so Safer Internet Day will be another opportunity for us to work together and show off our teamwork skills again, as well as have fun as a group!
