Children’s and leisure products Institute of Technology (Aiju), with the support of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (Euipo), has created an innovative free educational tool to kick off the new school year. Teach children the importance of intellectual property and the health risk of fake toysenvironment and economy.
The latest intellectual property barometer among Euipo youth states that 45% of young Spaniards knowingly purchased at least one counterfeit product in the last year. In this sense, education and awareness from school about the risk involved in this type of article is important. They say young consumers from Aiju need to learn to make informed decisions, and that learning starts at an early age.
Thus, the project “safe or fake?” It is aimed at girls and boys aged 8-12 and primary school teachers. and free educational resources to help them become responsible consumers. This tool specifically provides the education community with a range of fun and educational materials that can be used both at home and in school or extracurricular activities.
According to project coordinator Mari Cruz Arenas, with this initiative, “students can become designers of new toys or authors of a story, putting their knowledge into practice when it comes to preserving their own creations. They also learn to detect whether the toy they are going to buy is fake or not. These resources are for third to sixth grade” he emphasizes. Through them, children try to understand the concept of non-obvious risk to their health, environment and society.
Teachers and education professionals involved in the project positively valued the use of toys as a tool to reach students and address issues related to responsible consumption. In addition to focusing on traditional subjects taught in the classroom, such as social sciences or natural sciences.
The project’s resources are also aligned with the topics taught in the classroom, from the perspective of consumption and social reality to new online shopping models. According to the data, early childhood products for children 0 to 2 years old accounted for 60% of purchases in the toy category, while online gift purchases for children only accounted for 43% of total purchases. A study collected by the Aiju Guide 2021-2022.
To be exact, online commerce has become the main distribution channel for counterfeit goods. According to a study by Euipo and Oecde, more than 50% of seizures of counterfeit goods imported into the EU are related to electronic commerce.
This increase in e-commerce has also increased opportunities to offer counterfeit products to consumers around the world. And toys are one of the products most affected by the counterfeiting problem.
In this sense, the tool introduced by Aiju and Euipo aims to convey the importance of intellectual property and the dangers posed by imitations for children’s health. may contain toxic substancessmall parts or combustible materials that could suffocate.
These educational materials also address the consequences of purchasing fake toys from an environmental and economic perspective. Not only for companies, but also for society as a whole, because copies cause economic losses for the public coffers, citizens and the welfare state.
In addition, crimes against intellectual property often include other serious crimes such as money laundering, document fraud, cybercrime, fraud, drug production and trafficking, and terrorism.
In this sense, Ana Sánchez, head of the Aiju laboratory, said, “To motivate and arouse interest in children, we use the toy as a center of interest for learning intellectual property or injuries caused by a counterfeit toy”.
With this project, we offer “an educational tool that allows parents and teachers to work on the basic skills of children, while respecting the creations of others and the European values of sensitive consumers and the environment”.