Face It Don’t Chase It

Racist, physical, name calling, psychological, cyber, they are all forms of bullying and they are all happening in schools across the country and the world. The results can lead to depression, being scared to go to school, school work suffering, loss of self confidence and even suicide.

Joshua, 15,was a bully, but he wasn’t what you’d image your stereotypical bully to look like. He was the new kid at school after moving from another and came with a big attitude that didn’t match his small size. His teacher commented that he was very little, but very strong and feisty. Joshua’s bullying was a way of covering up his fear of a new school.

“When I came to this school I was quite scared about what to do and stuff and I was jealous that they could do things better than me and that they already had friends. There was another person in my class that was a bully and I took a bit from that.”

Joshua was never called a bully to his face but he always knew it deep down.

“I wasn’t called a bully but I knew I was because I was making people feel bad.”

Finally he decided that he needed to change.

“It was difficult for me to come forward and say I was a bully. I didn’t like to admit it really. But one day I stopped. At school we have an anti-bullying committee and I just joined up and it felt so much better to be helping people out and not making them feel bad.”

Young people are starting to take a lead in the fight against bullying. More and more schools are setting up anti-bullying groups that are run by young people themselves. Amber Harpum, 16 won a Diana Award for her work. The award is given in recognition to outstanding young people who make selfless contributions to their communities and invest a huge amount of energy and compassion to improve the lives of others.

She said. “I realised the students in our school needed someone to turn to, so we became mentors and then set up the anti-bullying group. If they have a problem they can come to us and it’s all confidential. We sit down with them and find out what their problem is and we then try and get them to set targets and how they can try and resolve the bullying issues. We’re just there for them as a helping hand.”

Amber uses her own experiences to help victims of bullies.

“I was bullied when I was younger, and there wasn’t this project up and running then. If it was then I think it would have really helped me.”

Young people find it difficult to talk to adults about things that are going on in their lives and bullying is the same.Amber believes there are still barriers between teachers and pupils and talking to fellow peers is less intimidating.

“It’s just too scary for them to talk to teachers. If there was someone a year older than me when I was being bullied that I could talk to, it would have helped me a lot.”

It’s easy for a teacher to see physical bullying going on in the hallways and playgrounds but bullying is not always out there in the open.

Amber said. “I think teachers are out of the loop. Physical bullying they can obviously see but cyber bulling is more frequent now. I don’t think they know as much about it because they don’t use the software. Cyber bullying is definitely on the up.”

Perhaps if the teachers are not doing a good enough job tackling bullying then it should be the responsibility of the young people to stop it and Amber agrees.

“It’s young people who actually do the bullying, so if we knew about it and took more responsibility, I think it probably wouldn’t happen as much. Everyone is responsible for their own actions, so the bullies can’t blame someone else for bullying someone, it’s just not on. I think if young people took more responsibility in stopping bullying, the percentages would go down.”

If young people stood up to bullies and helped victims the situation could improve. However some young people don’t care, with the attitude of just as long as it doesn’t happen to me. Would starting up an anti-bullying campaign at your school really work? Would young people go to them for help? Some people may see it as weak to go to something like that, as if you couldn’t back yourself up.

But Amber believes in anti-bullying campaigns.

“Everyone knows about our programme and no one would get bullied for coming to our group. It’s like a drop-in service. They come and sit down and we have a talk to try and work out their problem.”

Whatever happens, if you are being bullied, you need someone you can trust to talk to, but trust takes time to build, whether that’s trust from a teacher, or your peers.