About the Nordic Navigator and the Game-Changers Behind It
Children in the Nordic region have an unequivocal right to be protected from abuse. Equally important is their right to be protected from becoming perpetrators of abuse themselves. The Nordic Navigator of Safety and Wellbeing in Gaming and Digital Spaces is designed to do both. It is built on the vision that much of the abusive behavior perpetrated online by youth can be countered using material that has already proven to be successful in terms of increasing emotional resilience and wellbeing, as well as improving social and communication skills.
When it comes to online abuse of children by adults, that too can be detected and prevented by increasing the awareness among teachers, youth workers and other professionals about digital harms and how to make online spaces safer for youth.
The Nordic Navigator offers a roadmap to outstanding resources from Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland that combat a wide range of digital harms, from cyberbullying to sexual harassment, toxicity and risk behavior. Built on an intersectional foundation, this tool can be used to locate resources from all over the Nordic region to combat specific online harms rooted for example in racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, classism and ableism using multiple different formats, including teaching materials, games, films, campaigns, handbooks, hotlines, take-down guides, websites, anti-radicalization efforts, podcasts, online communities and more. Whether the youth that needs support is being abused, subjecting others to abuse or both, the Nordic Navigator offers measures for prevention, intervention and support.
The Game Changer
The Nordic Navigator is born out of the Game Changer project, an international collaboration between partners in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, including the E-sports Federation of Iceland (RÍSÍ), the Swedish gaming organisation SVEROK, the award-winning Finnish youth work Sua Varten Somessa, the Violence Prevention School of Iceland (Ofsi), Digitalt Ansvar and Center for Digital Pædagogik in Denmark, SEUL in Finland and the Nordic Digital Rights and Equality Foundation (NORDREF).
The project is based on research into the perpetrators of online abuse against women and girls in the Nordic region, which revealed that men under the age of 30 are overrepresented among perpetrators. As a result, the Game Changer is creating evidence-based tools, campaigns and initiatives to counter abuse in online spaces with a special focus on reaching young men using the fun methods of gaming and digital youth work. The overall aim of the project is to strengthen young people's digital rights and cyber citizenship via gaming, community-building and social entrepreneurship.
The Game Changer project has two phases, the former of which started in September 2023 and lasted through October 2024. It produced a chatbot that helps users level up their sexting game, several chatfictions about nudes and cyberbullying, research based on what Nordic youth would do if they were boss of the internet, an organizer handbook for hosts of safe and inclusive gaming tournaments, youth seminars in three countries, a conference where Meta and TikTok participated in solution-oriented discussions, and more.
The Nordic Navigator of Safety and Wellbeing in Gaming and Digital Spaces is a product of Game Changer 2.0, which lasts from 2024 to 2026. It includes the recruitment of Digital Youth Ambassadors in Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Iceland where young people will ensure an idea-exchange about best practices and solutions to the mutual challenges all countries face on the internet, amongst other things. Stay tuned!
The Game Changer is funded by the Erasmus+ program.