Young people are not waiting for organisations to invite them. They are in classrooms, in neighbourhood spaces, and on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. The question for media outlets, fact-checking organisations and civil society organisations is how to meet them there and build something lasting with them, not just for them.
On Thursday 22 October, at 15:00 CEST, Fundación Maldita.es hosts the webinar "Schools, streets and screens: building community with young people", a free one-hour online session, held in English, with two programmes that do this every day:
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Brittani Kollar, deputy director of MediaWise (Poynter Institute, USA), will present the Teen Creator Network, made up of 13- to 20-year-olds who share news, media literacy tips and debunks of viral misinformation with their peers on social media, and MediaWise's work with creators and streamers.
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Steffen Ludwig, deputy editor-in-chief of the youth editorial team at Salon5 (CORRECTIV, Germany), will explain how a physical space where young people make their own media (podcasts, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube) works, with journalists teaching them the craft, at five locations.
The session is moderated by Ximena Villagrán, chief operating officer of Maldita.es. After each programme is presented, they will discuss lessons learned, mistakes and what other organisations can replicate: how to reach young people, why they take part and why they stay, how to protect minors, how to teach verification without lecturing, and how to sustain a project with limited resources. There will be time for questions from the audience.
Who it is for: civil society organisations, media and information literacy teams, schools, and any organisation that wants to build community with young people, with or without a media outlet behind it.
Practical details
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Date: Thursday 22 October 2026
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Time: 15:00 CET (1 hour)
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Format: online, on Zoom
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Language: English
Everyone who takes part in the webinar will have access to the guidebook Community as Infrastructure, Maldita.es’ practical guide with the model and method for building community, including cases and exercises that any organisation can apply.
The webinar is part of CIRCLE, a project of Fundación Maldita.es co-funded by the European Union through ECAS EURECA Plus.