The Philippines will host the first International Youth Virtual Summit on Media and Information Literacy (MIL) this November.
The Philippine Association for Media and Information Literacy (PAMIL) announced the staging of the four-day International MIL Youth Virtual Summit 2020 on November 3, 10, 17 and 24, 2020 in the Philippines and November 7, 14, 21, and 28, 2020 via Premiere Facebook live on the PAMIL official FB Page.
The summit is co-organized by PAMIL, the United States – Philippine Exchange Alumni, Youth Advocate Building Opportunities and Network in Governance (YABONG) Philippines and the Global Alliance on Partnerships for Media and Information Literacy (GAPMIL) Asia-Pacific.
The summit, with the theme “MIL for All: The Youth as Vanguards for Responsible Social Media for Civic Engagement”, aims to gather participants including MIL educators and advocates, students, librarians, archivist, and media and communication professionals to exchange experiences on how the youth can address issues related to media and information literacy. The summit will gather 100 youth representatives from around the world to engage with each other and participate in the plenary sessions via Zoom.
PAMIL founding president Dr. Joey Alagaran said in an interview with PressONE.ph that the summit is a “major milestone for MIL movement in the Philippines.”
“This time PAMIL would also focus on the youth as they are the frequent users of social media especially for civic engagement. Through this event, we want everyone to be more critically aware of the importance of MIL for lifelong learning,” Alagaran said.
PAMIL vice president Mr. Arniel Ping said that Filipino youth plays a vital role in promoting MIL in our country and for this the summit will “provide our youth with the opportunity to see MIL from a global perspective and be able to compare that with their own.”
“The intention is not to identify which one is better but to allow them to crate a better and more inclusive MIL perspective that will benefit our country,” he said.
Topics to be discussed will cover the main theme of the conference on MIL for Civic Engagement and Cybersafety.
The keynote will be delivered by Alexander Le Voci Sayad, co-Chairman of the UNESCO GAPMIL International Steering Committee. His topic will be on GAPMIL’s Role in Promoting Responsible Social Media Engagement Among the Youth.
Dr. Alagaran, who is also the Asia-Pacific representative to the International Steering Committee of GAPMIL, will deliver the opening remarks of the summit.
PAMIL said that the summit aims to address issues related to MIL by crafting a Philippine Youth Declaration Statement on MIL and organizing the “Youth for MIL” group for further representation of youth in MIL from different sectors of society.
PAMIL said the crafting of the declaration statement will be led by the organizing team along with leaders from selected partner organizations such as Alliance of Magnanimous Youth Leaders Incorporated, Earth Shaker, Kalinaw Advocates, Bay Breeze Group of Publications, Andam Higala, Bicol University-University Student Council, Cavite Communicators and Associations of Junior Artist and Communicators.
This event is the Philippines’ contribution to the celebration of the UNESCO Global MIL Week 2020.
PAMIL was founded in 2018 as a non-stock, non-profit, SEC registered professional organization of MIL educators, trainers, advocates and practitioners who are “committed to promote MIL as a lifelong learning skill in a knowledge-based economy and media-saturated Filipino society.”
It is the Philippine counterpart of the National Association for Media Literacy Education in the United States, and the Philippine chapter of GAPMIL – Asia-Pacific Chapter. Rommel F. Lopez