How I discuss online safety through workshops

This post is part of my Vidarbha Diaries series — about a digital awareness initiative that a small group of us voluntarily set up in October 2021 in the central Indian region of Vidarbha.

In taking up this work, I put myself out of my comfort zone by relocating to a region where I knew nobody and had no support system — during the second half of the pandemic, when schools and colleges were still not allowing gatherings or workshops. I found I had nothing but my passion to do good work to fall back on.

"Why did you choose this place?"

The Central Indian region of Vidarbha had been of curiosity to me since 2010 — ever since I quit my job at the Big Four for the simple reason that I wanted to apply my mind to social causes rather than corporate profit. Journalist P Sainath's writings on poverty, structural inequalities and his travels across rural India had a profound impact on me. The region stayed with me all those years.

"You should work with teenage girls. Their lives are severely affected by social media."

During the pandemic I had the chance to start somewhere afresh. I chose Nagpur. I knew nobody there. In my initial days, I interviewed nearly 50 people, trying to figure out how I could play a meaningful role. And slowly the answer became clear: I could design and deliver trainings on how to be safe online.

The people I interviewed spoke at length about how digital media had exploded into their lives, forcing them and their families to go online. People experienced very different degrees of freedom in the online world versus the offline one. My role within the Global IT team of a charity, combined with all of my community work experience, could now be channelled into 2-hour digital safety trainings in local languages.

What the course covered

My workshop was divided into 3 sessions:

1. Participant stories (30–60 mins): Stories from their lives, experiences with everyday phone usage
2. Facilitated discussion (30 mins): The economics of the internet, addressing stories shared
3. Live practical demo (30 mins): Demonstrating phone settings — how to restrict who sees your WhatsApp profile picture, how to prevent being added to groups without consent — with participants fixing settings on their own devices

The course was always in Marathi or Hindi, with slides that were deliberately visual and light on text.

Session 1 — Stories and ice-breakers

Session 2 — Concepts and context

Session 3 — Practical action

I hope this gives you an idea of what was at the core of our workshops. In future posts in this series, I share feedback received, specific stories and what I learnt — including the real challenges of volunteering without funds or institutional support.

— Janani