(ANS – Córdoba) – In a context marked by the increasing digitization of daily life, the Delegation for Youth Ministry of the Argentina North Province (ARN), through its Educational Centers sector, is launching the educational and pastoral project “Digital Courtyards: Navigating and Inhabiting with Awareness” this month. The initiative seeks to foster active, critical, and responsible digital citizenship among children, adolescents, young adults, and adults.

The project responds to the profound changes that new technologies are bringing to the ways people learn, build relationships, communicate, and express themselves. The internet and social media have become spaces for participation and social interaction, where significant opportunities for growth and learning coexist with situations of vulnerability, overexposure, and risk.

In response to this reality, “Digital Courtyards” aims to accompany technological developments within Salesian educational communities through a proactive approach that promotes the development of digital skills rooted in values, critical thinking, and personal responsibility. The project’s primary objective is to encourage the safe, informed, and responsible use of the internet, social media, and emerging technologies among children, adolescents, and young people in Salesian schools and youth groups throughout ARN.

This goal will be pursued through opportunities for reflection, training, and awareness-building that promote engaged and participatory digital citizenship.

The initiative includes a multifaceted strategy. Training programs will be offered for educators, administrators, youth leaders, and adults responsible for educational and pastoral communities. These programs are designed to provide practical tools, criteria, and educational resources to better understand contemporary digital realities and guide younger generations in online environments. Through these efforts, the project seeks to strengthen the role of adults as educational mentors while fostering dialogue, listening, learning, and prevention.

“Digital Courtyards” will also feature a province-wide communications and awareness campaign led by the Delegation for Social Communication and directed specifically toward young people. The objective is to ensure that adolescents and young adults are not merely recipients of information but active contributors to building a more humane, respectful, supportive, and informed digital culture.

Planned activities include training sessions for educators and pastoral workers, digital citizenship workshops in schools, a province-wide communications and awareness campaign, and a festival showcasing audiovisual productions created by young people.

The project is financially supported by Misiones Salesianas, the Salesian Mission Office in Madrid, and benefits from the collaboration of the Tecnología con Propósito Foundation, an organization specializing in digital citizenship and technology education.

The initiative seeks to strengthen both institutional leadership and educational practices within the Salesian houses of ARN, addressing the digital dimension not merely as a technical tool but as a cultural, philosophical, and social reality that calls for a close and meaningful educational presence in these “digital courtyards,” now inhabited primarily by children and young people.

Through “Digital Courtyards,” the schools and youth groups of the Salesians of ARN renew their commitment to holistic education, addressing contemporary challenges with a proactive and deeply human approach.

For more information, visit donbosconorte.org.ar.