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z | Page 5 Volume 15 Number 8 | 50¢
February 25, 2016
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Anti-Bullying Week: Stand up and speak out! A sea of pink shirts fills workplaces, schools and streets this week for the annual Pink Shirt Day. The day that aims to help take a bite out of bullying came from humble beginnings but to date has done a world of good. “In 2007, two Nova Scotia students decided to take action after witnessing a younger student being bullied for wearing a pink shirt to school,” explains Jen Schaeffers, executive director of the CKNW Orphans’ Fund. “The students bought 50 pink t-shirts and encouraged schoolmates to wear them and send a powerful message of solidarity to the bully. CKNW Orphan’s Fund was inspired by the story and to date have raised more than $1.2 million for anti-bullying programs in British Columbia with the sales of Pink Shirt Day T-Shirts.” workplaces we call home. It is inspirational tales such as Although the quintessential bully this that warm our hearts and help – think Nelson, the boy who beats strike action across the country us up and steals our lunch money but unfortunately bullying is not a on The Simpsons - doesn’t pop up thing of the past and is something in our lives too frequently, bullies that happens every single day in live all around us in our daily lives. the schools, neighbourhoods and Unknowingly or without thought,
hurts or scares another person on purpose and the person being bullied has a hard time defending themselves. It is behaviour that makes the person being bullied feel afraid or uncomfortable. There are many ways that young people bully each other, even if they don’t realize it at the time. Some of these include: punching, shoving and other acts that hurt people physically, spreading bad rumours about people, keeping certain people out of a group, teasing people in a mean way, getting certain people to gang up on others. Just so we are on the same page, the four most common types of bullying are firstly verbal bullying - namecalling, sarcasm, teasing, spreading rumours, threatening, making negative references to these bullies can even turn out to one’s culture, ethnicity, race, relibe people we know or even our- gion, gender, sexual orientation or selves. You may not even recog- unwanted sexual comments. There nize the bully around you, but it is social bullying - mobbing, scapeis certain that someone does, and goating, excluding others from a that is the person who is affected group, humiliating others with public gestures or graffiti intended to by the behaviour. Bullying happens when someone - continued on page 2