Happy to have been a partner at the What Works Wellbeing event with the KHDA

Having launched the Beat the Cyberbully (BTCB) initiative in the UAE in the 3rd week of February it was a pleasure and an honour to be asked to be a part of the What Works Wellbeing

The event is one of a series that the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) run throughout the year. The subject of this one – Well being.  Our participation was to promote online well being for children, parents and teachers. Our whole initiative is about increasing the level of education and awareness across the communication channels that have become an essential part of our lives, and the lives of our children.

There is no getting away from the fact that our lives are becoming more and more reliant on digital tools. As adults we feel somewhat naked if we leave our phone at home and for generation y and z, having a smartphone or tablet is just ‘normal.’ Our opinion is there is nothing wrong with this, but it’s all about correct usage of the tools by everyone.

Can we stop cyberbullying? – we don’t know, but if we can increase the level of understanding and education around all the channels, the access points and perhaps just provide 1 parent the ability to understand what their child is saying to them when they come to them and say that – ‘one of the guys in class has snapchatted a salty pic of me – everyone is lol’ing so I hit WUT and started a rumour about his Bieber obsession’. Then we believe we are helping.

Having run the campaign in the UK and had really positive feedback, we also have got a really good insight into the issues of parents. For one, we had a father of two approach us afterwards, thanking us for the information. He had one question – ‘what was 3G?’

There is nothing wrong with this, but if that is the level of understanding of parents out there, what chance do they have of actually understanding the sentence above?

The What Works Wellbeing event was held at the Indian International School up in Silicon Oasis and was a great venue for the myriad of workshops being put on and the partners show case area upstairs. A steady flow of people throughout the day – as well as being located by the coffee – meant we got to talk to a number of counsellors, heads of schools and teachers throughout the day. It was the first outing for our roll ups, brochures and business cards and were thoroughly grateful to have been a part of the whole event

Sam from Footstep Communications our PR partner attended and that meant we could get a couple of photos too!! Here are just a couple and we look forward to working with the KHDA again in the near future.

Thank you for letting us be a part of a great initiative.