Bullying has been a major issue around the world for decades. Every few years, a new form of the terrible act seems to appear.
Bullying comes in many forms like physical violence or making someone do something they don't want to do. It can also be verbal abuse or saying bad things behind their back. It often takes away the victims feeling of safety in a certain environment, including online, and makes them feel powerless.
Bullies want to have all of the control and on May 2, the High School and Elementary schools in Carlyle want the community to help them take that power away.
The schools' event originally began last year when the counselors of the two schools, Jeff Laforet and Bryce Birch sat down to talk about bullying issues in their school last year.
The students later completed a survey about bullying, and the two soon realized that their students were unaware of how to approach bullies and how to fix their bully problems.
Pink day was first created by two Nova Scotia High School students, David Shepherd and Travis Price. They organized a high school protest to show their support by wearing pink in sympathy of a grade 9 student who was constantly the victim of bullying. They protested the bullying by distributing pink t-shirts to all the boys in their school. According to the boys, the bullies were never heard from again.
Last year Luc Mullinder of the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Tad Kornegay, who was also a Roughrider at the time, came to talk to the Carlyle students about their personal experiences with bullies.
This year the school has joined forces with the Red Cross, even though they do not share the same date for their pink day as the Red Cross held its April 4. Chris Getzlaf, Red Cross RespectED Prevention Educator, will be making a presentation of an hour for the K-3s and 1.5 hours for the older kids. A special lunch will be served, as well as relay races before the grand finale of the Chain for Change, which will this year include people from the community.
Chain for Change will involve the two schools creating a human chain pathway from the Elementary School to the High School. The linking symbolizes the community and the schools combined goal of combating the issue of bullying.
"The community can show its support by wearing pink on May 2, to show their awareness of bullying. Bullying doesn't only happen at schools, but also at ice rinks, parks and online. It is a world issue." says Mr. Birch.
Pink bracelets will be available, as well as anti bullying t-shirts.
"We will not tolerate bullying in this town," says Birch.
