STOP BULLYING
SCORP CIMSA UPH
Have you ever been teased to the point where you think that it is no longer amusing? Do you remember how it felt like? This is a simplification of the sensation that bullying brings to its victims; a mixture of humiliation and anger that puts them in a state of helplessness at best and deep resentment at worst. Safe to say it’s no good deal either way. But don’t take our word for it, according to the CDC (2015), students who experience bullying are at increased risk for poor school adjustment, sleep difficulties, anxiety, and depression. This phenomenon also occurs with a high prevalence where according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (“A Familiar Face: Violence in the lives of children and adolescents”, UNICEF, New York, 2017), Half of students aged 13 to 15 worldwide, – around 150 million – report having experienced peer-to-peer violence in and around school. This means that globally, slightly more than 1 in 3 students aged 13-15 experience bullying, and roughly the same proportion are involved in physical fights.
On Saturday, September 1st 2018, CIMSA UPH’s SCORP addresses this issue by organizing a one-day event focused on raising awareness among middle school children about the dangers of bullying. SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Tangerang was chosen as the target school in this project with children aged 13-15 years old as the audience. Methods in delivering the anti-bullying message to the kids include
1. An educational session, where the OC invited a certified counselor from H.O.P.E. UPH to present a mini-seminar about what exactly is bullying, how to avoid it from happening, and how to react to it when it happens.
2. Poster making, where the children are divided in to several small groups and tasked with creating an original “stop bullying” campaign, an implementation of what they had learned from the previous seminar.
3. And lastly, the children are given the chance to write down, in their own words, their feelings about bullying and also some words of comfort for any victim of bullying. This is a form of personal promise to themselves that they will not be the bully and that they will be strong if they are bullied. These messages are then put on to a balloon for a fun and symbolic touch.
By the end of this project there was an increase of post-test results by 36.7% from the pre-test, which indicates an improvement of knowledge regarding the topic of bullying. The children were enthusiastic and interactive with the OC all throughout the event and very keen on the idea of similar projects held there in the future. With the success of SCORP UPH’s first event this period, the OC generated high-spirits for more Human Rights and Peace projects to come. Although simple, our hopes are that these kinds of events may ensure another generation safe from the detrimental repercussions of bullying, one school at a time.