Prime Implementer
Implementing Partners
Local subgrantees:
Project Timeline
October 2021 – September 2026
Project Goals
Objective: CREDIBLE is a five-year project funded by USAID that aims to transform how young people interact with information and build resilience to information manipulation. Locally-led, the program focuses on empowering youth to engage in fact-based discourse and decision-making.
Goal 1: Improve youth digital and media literacy skills and promote positive community social norms that support informed political participation and civic engagement.
Goal 2: Promote local media, particularly young journalists and young local influencers to engage with their communities, produce quality content, and guide others on positive local norms around civic responsibility, civic engagement, and information.
Brief Background
CREDIBLE works with partners in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Peru to build media and digital literacy and energize the information space with youth voices. It uses IREX’s proven and participatory approaches such as Learn to Discern (L2D), Vibrant Information Barometer (VIBE), and Organizational Performance Improvement (OPI) to analyze and strengthen information ecosystems and promote shift norms around information engagement.
CREDIBLE also collaborates with local media organizations in the Latin American and Caribbean region to produce content and initiatives that foster more informed, productive, and inclusive civil discourse.
In Year 3, CREDIBLE will launch new activities in Colombia and scale up its work in the Dominican Republic as part of the Advance Digital Democracy initiative. The goal of the new component is to boost youth’s information resilience and digital skills, support youth leadership, and enhance youth’s engagement with local governance and the private sector. CREDIBLE will also enhance youth's understanding about artificial intelligence and how it affects information trends in the region and how they might design initiatives to use it to address information manipulation.
Overview of Activities
YOUTH-LED APPROACHES
CREDIBLE established Youth Steering Committees (SOL Teams) at local and regional levels to support the program design and guide the adaptation and scaling of media, digital literacy, and content production for various initiatives. 30 young people are already involved in this initiative, giving feedback and input to the program activities, reflecting on the learning agenda, and enhancing the content and messaging.
LOCALLY-LED INITIATIVES WITH YOUTH AND EDUCATION PARTNERS
Guatemala: In Huehuetenango, Paz Joven trains high school students from indigenous communities on how to remain resilient to manipulative information and understand how information manipulation can impact behavior and their relationship with the information ecosystem.
Peru: CEDRO trains high school tutors how to navigate information overload and engage with media in positive ways. CEDRO’s curriculum combines the L2D learning framework with the soft skills that the national curriculum establishes as part of the tutoring hours program.
Dominican Republic: ENTRENA trains young leaders from at-risk communities and combines its methodology of accelerated learning, with its curricula on Life Skills and L2D competencies. The learning groups are managed by young leaders who have been coached by ENTRENA through a Training of Trainers (ToT) program.
Colombia: Makaia works to strengthen youth assets and agency around information resilience and digital skills, reinforcing youth leadership to lead changes in local governance and strengthen their involvement with the private sector.
Besides the country-specific activities, these core partners and IREX are jointly responsible for key program components that foster a network of organizations that resist information manipulation at the regional level. These components include monitoring and evaluation, iterative learning and communications, which support the other locally-led efforts for CREDIBLE’s benefit.
PROMOTING YOUTH RESPONSIVE CONTENT
Guatemala: Plaza Pública delivered workshops to teach university students (from five different cities in Guatemala) on how to identify information manipulation and how to generate quality content for their communities. Laboratorio de Medios trained and mentored young content creators to become more resilient to information manipulation by reflecting on their own information consumption patterns, improving their media literacy skills, and employing other elements of communication and journalism. Through a mentorship program, youth reflected on the information manipulation of their context and created a resilience network to face it.
Peru: OjoPúblico trained young content creators in fact checking and debunking practices. They gained essential media literacy skills in addition to a holistic view on resilience to information manipulation. Some of the creators participated in an in-person challenge designed to test their ability to adapt and apply what they learned to create engaging and viral content for their social media platforms.
Results
- Following the Learn to Discern approach, CREDIBLE provides youth in Guatemala, Peru, Dominican Republic and Colombia with tools to reflect on their own information consumption habits, understand their cognitive and emotional biases and improve their digital media literacy skills. Ultimately, this empowers them to create initiatives that promote positive community social norms for civic engagement in their information ecosystem.
- So far, CREDIBLE has seen the following results:
- + 1,500 individuals reached by CREDIBLE media and digital literacy activities.
- On average, 59.8% of individuals demonstrated improved digital literacy following participation in CREDIBLE activities.
Other expected results:
- Starting the third year of intervention, the learnings and results obtained allow CREDIBLE and its partners to scale the interventions, leveraging their potential for impact and strategical growth, and making it cost effective while partners improve their internal processes.
- Engage local media, particularly young journalists and local youth influencers, with their communities to produce quality content, and lead others in positive local norms around civic responsibility, civic engagement, and information.
Contact
Laura Agosta - Chief of Party for CREDIBLE and Deputy Director, Information and Media Practice - IREX
Email: Lagosta@irex.org
Diana Rodríguez – Regional Manager - CREDIBLE
Email: Drodriguez@irex.org
