Project: SAFEGUARD – Empowering Future Educators: Building a Safer Digital Space for Children
Coordinator: Erasmus Student Network Dubrovnik (ESN Dubrovnik)
Partners: University of Maribor, VERN University, Simbioza Genesis, Gender Equality Research Institute (IPES)
Project Code: 101253484 – SAFEGUARD
Project Duration: 1 January 2026 – 31 December 2027
Funded by: European Union – European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA)
Programme: CERV-2025-CHILD
In today’s digital world, children and young people grow up surrounded by online platforms that shape how they communicate, learn, socialise, and express themselves. While digital spaces create opportunities for creativity and connection, they also expose children to serious risks such as cyberbullying, online harassment, gender-based violence, toxic online behaviour, and digital exclusion. Girls, in particular, are disproportionately affected by online abuse, body shaming, and harmful stereotypes, while boys are often pressured by toxic norms around masculinity and emotional suppression.
To respond to these growing challenges, Erasmus Student Network Dubrovnik (ESN Dubrovnik) proudly coordinates the SAFEGUARD project — Empowering Future Educators: Building a Safer Digital Space for Children. The project brings together educational institutions, researchers, NGOs, and digital experts from Croatia and Slovenia to create more inclusive, safer, and child-centred digital environments.
The project focuses on four key objectives:
• Empowering children to navigate digital spaces safely and responsibly
• Strengthening educators’ capacity to deliver gender-sensitive digital literacy education
• Integrating child-rights and gender-sensitive approaches into ICT education
• Raising public awareness about digital safety, equality, and inclusion
Throughout the project, SAFEGUARD will engage children, teachers, future ICT professionals, policymakers, and the wider public through a wide range of educational and awareness-raising activities. The project also includes the launch of an interactive SAFEGUARD digital platform that will provide educational resources, tools, videos, and interactive content for children, teachers, and ICT professionals.
SAFEGUARD recognises that digital environments are not neutral spaces. They reflect and reproduce social inequalities, stereotypes, and harmful norms. By connecting education, technology, and youth participation, the project aims to build a digital culture based on empathy, equality, inclusion, and children’s rights.
Through international cooperation and cross-sector collaboration, SAFEGUARD seeks to create long-term systemic change in the way digital literacy, online safety, and gender equality are addressed in schools, universities, and digital design.
Together, we are building a safer digital future for all children.