The proposal “Maldita Educa: tools against disinformation for vulnerable groups” was one of those selected alongside 220 science communication and dissemination projects. In this call, 124 organizations of all kinds participated, from universities to companies and from foundations to public research centers, which will launch their projects to improve the scientific-technical education of society at all levels. The project will be carried out between July 2021 and June 2022. The score obtained in the evaluation was 79 points out of 100, achieving 47.9% of the project’s funding through this support. The remaining 52.1% will be provided by Maldita.es.
The Maldita Educa project aims to develop a training program for trainers in the fight against disinformation in all areas but, especially, those related to science, health, and, specifically, the COVID-19 pandemic, with the particular feature of targeting groups especially vulnerable to this problem.
The Maldita Educa team will select and train 20 participants (youth, educators, older adults, migrants, and health workers) developing materials and methodologies adapted to their environment together with them. Once the program is completed, the participants will be qualified to provide this training to other educators and technicians who can replicate the workshops for members and students in their groups. The project also includes the publication of all materials for open access.
Through this working methodology, it aims to reach especially vulnerable audiences in a scalable way: Maldita Educa will create a network of 20 trainers who will participate throughout the 12 months of the project in the creation and testing of the methodologies and teaching guides and will be trained. Subsequently, they must conduct a workshop for a minimum of 5 trainers from their workplaces, ensuring that at least 100 trainers will be prepared to offer this course in their various fields.
In addition to this, on the Maldita Educa page, a public repository of educational resources (training itineraries, articles, games, presentations, among others) will be created. On this website, we will publish the materials and methodologies used during the project so that other educators can use the resources for free.
The FECYT grant helps us to consolidate the main objective of Maldita Educa: to promote media literacy among citizens of all ages and sociocultural backgrounds, to create a conscious community that can defend itself against disinformation, protect its privacy, and make informed decisions, whatever their beliefs.
