In 2021, Saigon Children’s Charity partnered with the Marie Collins Foundation to co-develop online safety materials for primary-school-age children in Vietnam.
With funding from the End Violence Against Children fund through the Marie Collins Foundation, the project has launched a Vietnamese-English bilingual comic book with the title “Linh and Danh’s Online Adventure”. The book tells the story of two Second-graders named Linh and Danh who borrowed their mother’s phone to play online games. With the help of Cyber superhero Techie Tink, the two have learned lessons such as not to imitate risky actions online, not to click on strange links, and not to disclose personal information to someone you don’t know online.
A page spread in the comic book
With a simple story structure, cute visuals, as well as a smart way to integrate practical lessons into everyday situations in the lives of elementary school children, the story is very helpful in introducing children to the concept of staying safe online. Thanks to the bilingual two-sided printing, the book is also a good reference for children to learn English, specifically English expressions in daily life.
With the support of Studio VirtAsia, the project also released an animated film version so that it can reach more children, especially children with disabilities.
Accompanying the comic book, the project has developed two sets of supplemental materials for teachers and parents. The lesson plan for teachers contains 6 detailed lessons and 3 individual lessons to apply in classroom activities, 6 online safety lessons for children with special needs, plus supporting materials such as character cards, emotion cards, songs, games, etc. On the other hand, the parent handbook deals with how to communicate with children about the topics in the story, how to recognize children’s emotions, and basic instructions for handling the situation if something negative has happened to the child online.
To access the materials in this project, please visit https://gocantoan.saigonchildren.com. Please always cite the source from Saigon Children’s Charity when quoting and using these materials.