Online Safety: “Mom & Pop” Portuguese Project Among The Main In Europe

Jan. 8, 2014 - PRLog -- Rio Tinto, Portugal – A Portuguese project created about 11 years ago by an unemployed man, stands today as one of the main initiatives in the field of online safety for children and youth achieving the highest reach at an European level. The statement was issued by Tito de Morais, founder of Projecto MiudosSegurosNa.net (which stands for KidsSafeOnThe.Net Project in Portuguese), regarding its’s MiudosSegurosNa.Net Tour 2014, an initiative to fund awareness raising and training events across Portugal, launched today at Massivemov, a crowdfunding platform.

Created in 2003 by Tito de Morais as a family initiative, the MiudosSegurosNa.net Project is now the first project exclusively dedicated to online safety of children and teenagers with the widest reach among similar initiatives in Europe. Considering projects from other entities with initiatives in this area, such as the largest European organizations for the protection and promotion of children's rights, MiudosSegurosNa.Net stands, yet still, in the eighth position. And is the fifth most talked about.

The conclusion follows an analysis of the presence on Facebook of 160 projects dedicated to online safety of children and teenagers from 34 European countries. Among these are, in its overwhelming majority, projects funded by the European Commission, governments, businesses and NGOs, where it is estimated that the European Union has already invested about 140 million Euros since 1999.

Justifying the need for the crowdfunding initiative, Tito de Morais recalls the EU Kids Online data revealing that "42% of Portuguese young people between 9 and 16 years old did not have any advice on internet security and 65% of parents would like to receive information and advice from their child's school, but only 28% actually received it", adding: "in a time marked by budget cuts, interest has not diminished, but the available resources are dwindling, especially given the lack of interest shown by potential sponsors we have approached, therefore making crowdfunding present itself as an alternative".

The MiudosSegurosNa.Net crowdfunding initiative can be accessed at http://www.massivemov.com/miudossegurosnanet and will take place over the course of the next 60 days.

Attachment to this press-release available in PDF format at: http://www.miudossegurosna.net/press-releases/MSNN-PR-201...