Online Media Literacy Program for Adults and Mentors of Local Communities

The program includes two components: training of mentors in local communities and training for the elderly 55+

Program for mentors in local communities 

The program is aimed at people with authority in their professional and living environment to guide their fellow citizens, colleagues and relatives in their entry into social networks. It is aimed at those working in regional community centers, libraries, civic organizations, union leaders, and local municipalities. The training course include: learning to recognize the main elements of the reliable and authoritative news / information; learning to identify news / information that is propaganda and/or disinformation; online fraud detection; learning to recognize the main characteristics of the fake profiles and their behavior; adherence to basic rules for creating media content; understanding the risks associated with providing personal information online. 

So far, more than 200 mentors have been trained in many places across the country, including union leaders and health mediators.

Program for elderly 55+

The program is targeted at the so-called \“newcomers\“ in social networks, elderly people and children who already have access to the Internet via smartphones, but do not yet have developed skills for safe and complete use of new communication channels on the Internet.

This group is particularly vulnerable on social media, as its representatives have no knowledge of the abuses in these new channels. At the same time, they are active people who want to get involved in public debates, but are often left out of the focus of national policies on inclusion. Older people, especially during the pandemic, have been exposed to severe social isolation, which online communication can compensate to some extent. That is why they need to feel safe and confident, and participate online in the social life of the community.

The program aims to develop skills needed for recognizing and tackling misinformation, propaganda and conspiracy theories, fake profiles and fraud in the online space. The aim of the program is to develop skills for safe communication through social networks for more active involvement of the elderly in debates on current topics of public and community life. The program is tailored to the target group and it builds basic skills through practical activities and discussions, without making it difficult for the elderly.

Program partners

To date, the program has received support from the U.S. Department of State sponsored Alumni Thematic International Exchange Seminars (Alumni TIES); Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation, Sofia Municipality Europe Program, US Embassy Small Grants Program.

About the lecturers: 

Her mission as a journalist for over 20 years has been to tell exciting stories, reveal important details, present interesting personalities, ask questions, deal with conflicts and stand up for positions.‎

She has won dozens of awards, some of them international. More important of these are the Grand Prize \“Chernorizets Hrabar\“ for investigative journalism, the Grand Prize \“Valya Bulbina – journalism for the people\“ and the Grand Prize for Journalism \“Sveti Vlas\“, whose monetary equivalent she did not accept for ethical reasons.‎

‎Benatova worked at 168 Hours, BTV and Nova TV and writes for the magazines \“Biographer\“, \“L\’EUROPEO\“, \“Manager\“, \“Egoist\“. She has been a TEDx talker in three editions in Bulgaria and is a lecturer in documentary cinema at the National University of National And World Art. She was ranked among the 100 most influential women in Bulgaria, as well as among the TOP 50 most influential Bulgarians on Facebook.‎ Her side occupations include taxi driving and being motivational speaker in the corporate world.‎

‎After thousands of reports, investigations and interviews, I believe there are no boring people, ‎‎ ‎‎only undiscovered plots.‎‎ MB‎

Angel Georgiev has many years of experience as a technical trainer and product presenter. He has trained in Europe, the United States and the Middle East. Since 2014 it is part of the education in software engineering in our country. At the time of joining the Media Literacy Coalition in 2020, he was in charge of the internal training and development program at Musala Soft.

Since the spring of 2021 he has been part of the SoftUni team, where he leads the strategic development of professional programs – Software University, SoftUni Digital and SoftUni Creative. In addition to all this, Angel is a teacher of programming and information technology at school and is the founder of Znam.be.