Stay Safe Online:
ACCO’s Educational Campaign in Tanzania
In 2020, Tanzanian conservationist and human right activist Shubert Mwarabu approached ACCO for support in responding to the alarming rise in human traffickers, scammers and wildlife criminals operating on social media platforms in Tanzania. In partnership with Shubert, ACCO has launched the Stay Safe Online program to help Tanzanian youth protect themselves from cyber predators.
By March of 2021, we held our first educational workshop at the Nguva Secondary School in Dar es Salaam. Led by Shubert, a Mandela Washington Fellow, and a team of local comedians and musicians, the four-hour event combined music, stand-up comedy, and a presentation by ACCO Executive Director Gretchen Peters, who attended virtually. We expected just 50 students, and more than 350 showed up to learn about online wildlife trafficking, romance scams and human trafficking.
The workshop was enormously successful, with more than 80% of the participants saying they felt better equipped to identify cybercriminals and protect themselves from online crimes after taking the course. Several female students told us they had been approached online by people claiming to offer them modeling jobs in the United Arab Emirates, which they now realized were likely human traffickers. We agree — and it made us realize the urgency of expanding our program.
With Tanzania investing billions of dollars as part of its Development Vision 2025 to bring its economy and citizens into the digital age, a surge in Internet usage is expected. In 2020, it was estimated that 27 million, almost half the nation's population, are now using the Internet. Yet digital safety programs are almost non-existent and current domestic regulations fail to address the sudden flood of online criminals and scammers.
The Stay Safe Online Tanzania program is assisting the Tanzanian government to develop a national strategy to counter online crime, and ACCO will provide Tanzanian policymakers and law enforcement officials with information about cyber criminal operations and tactics.
The program is also educating millions of Tanzanians about online threats and digital safety strategies through a public education campaign. This year, Shubert has presented about online crime on popular TV and radio programs, which have been flooded with calls from the audience, saying they are stunned by the scale of the problem.
At ACCO, we are aiming to increase the number of workshops for middle and high school students using Swahili-language curriculum, and Shubert's unique engagement approach combining instruction with music and comedy.
In countries like Tanzania, Internet access is growing rapidly, but many people aren’t aware of the extent that criminals and violent groups have weaponized ordinary social media platforms. In order to reach these vulnerable populations of Internet users, we are aiming to expand our educational campaign to other parts of the developing world, with Tanzania as our pilot project. We’re trying to raise another $50,000 by the end of the year to get the project out of the gate. Will you help us get there?