Building communities of young critical thinkers to strengthen civic engagement and democracy
Latih Logika
2024
Vibrant democracy demands citizens who can think critically
The true spirit of democracy is fulfilled through people's active political participation. However, without citizens who can think critically and distinguish between facts and disinformation, a strong democratic system is impossible.
But young people in Indonesia are not equipped with critical thinking skills
Indonesia's PISA score continues to decline, with almost no students scoring at Level 5 or higher in reading. Critical thinking is not taught at schools or colleges in Indonesia. Considering this gap and the widespread dissemination of misinformation, we started Latih Logika in 2017 to build an online community of young critical thinkers in Indonesia, a free online course on critical thinking in Indonesian for high-school students and above, hosted on a mobile-focused website and YouTube.
We teach young people in Indonesia through interactive and educating content
Latih Logika course videos on YouTube: 16 course videos, each 4-7 minutes, each with more than 100k views since 2018. The YouTube channel has over 30k organic subscribers and 1.3 million views.
Interactive games about disinformation: "Bad News" and "Harmony Square" (developed by the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab, adapted to the Indonesian context) help audiences identify disinformation and avoid spreading it.
Regular social media content on TikTok and Instagram, such as "Fact vs. Opinion vs. Fiction" and "Masa sih Pak/Bu?", applying lessons to trending opinions. Over one 90-day period, 28 Instagram posts reached 984k accounts, over 90% of them non-followers.
We are looking for future partners in building communities of young critical thinkers in Indonesia
Latih Logika's organic traffic and usage are solid proof of concept, and it has become part of school homework in some Indonesian schools.
In the future, we want to co-organize in-person meet-ups as a safe space to practice critical thinking skills
We want to partner with local youth-focused CSOs to pilot offline community activities, co-adapt our online games to be played in person, and support partners in developing activities with youth using Latih Logika tools.
