"It is true that the In­ter­net is part of our every­day lives, how­ev­er, we must be mind­ful of the harm that can re­sult if mis­used."

So stressed di­rec­tor of the Neal & Massy Foun­da­tion Hugh Hen­der­son, as he dis­cussed the foun­da­tion's in­volve­ment in the Cot­ton Tree Foun­da­tion's In­ter­net Safe­ty Pro­gramme.

A re­lease from the foun­da­tion said ear­ly this year, it made a con­tri­bu­tion of $40,000 in sup­port of the or­gan­i­sa­tion's ef­forts to in­crease the pub­lic's aware­ness of some of the dan­gers as­so­ci­at­ed with In­ter­net use. While the ini­tial pro­gramme ed­u­cat­ed the au­di­ence about the ben­e­fits of us­ing new tech­nol­o­gy, it al­so high­light­ed the risks.

The six-week pro­gramme, which in­clud­ed a num­ber of prac­ti­cal ses­sions, reached out to teach­ers, par­ents, guardians and men­tors to stim­u­late knowl­edge base learn­ing, em­pow­er­ment and in­still con­fi­dence when speak­ing to young peo­ple on the sen­si­tive top­ics such as sex­u­al­i­ty and pornog­ra­phy.

An­neliese Per­cy, the Cot­ton Tree Foun­da­tion's gen­er­al man­ag­er, said, "The Cot­ton Tree Foun­da­tion is ex­treme­ly pleased to have re­ceived this do­na­tion to­wards our In­ter­net Safe­ty Pro­gramme."

Per­cy added, "We are de­light­ed that the Neal & Massy Foun­da­tion un­der­stands the need for and im­por­tance of such a pro­gramme in so­ci­ety. The In­ter­net plays a ma­jor role in how young peo­ple recre­ate, in­ter­act and com­mu­ni­cate to­day. This fund­ing will al­low us to con­tin­ue ed­u­cat­ing par­ents so that they are bet­ter able to pro­tect their chil­dren from some of the dan­gers of the in­ter­net such as cy­ber bul­ly­ing and in­ter­net pornog­ra­phy."

Hen­der­son added, "We must ap­plaud the Cot­ton Tree Foun­da­tion for the tremen­dous work car­ried out over the years to as­sist the youth in the com­mu­ni­ties they serve."

The Cot­ton Tree Foun­da­tion was es­tab­lished in 1993 to of­fer a va­ri­ety of pro­grammes to help im­prove life chances through the medi­um of ed­u­ca­tion. St Ann's, Cas­cade and Bel­mont are some of the com­mu­ni­ties that ben­e­fit from its work.

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