December 12, 2012 will mark Global Bullying Prevention Day. Participating students, teachers and parents are asked to commemorate the day with twelve seconds of silence at 12 PM PST. To honour the event, California legislators have advanced Bill SRC-100 to mark 12/12/12 a Bullying Prevention Day in the state of California. Also promoting that special day is KidsResourse.org and its founder, Gerry Orz.
In the short film available on his website titled Day of Silence, Gerry provides the following message: “My name is Gerry Orz, founder of a non-profit organization, Kids Resource. I am 10 years old and I would like to ask your help in promoting my message all around the world. I have been bullied in school for so many reasons – too tall, gay parents, parent a foreigner, too honest, too Jewish… I refused to feel like a victim but I had the support of my mothers and a brother and my voice was HEARD. Not everyone was so lucky…”
Bullying can take many forms, all of them ugly. Though news stories continue to report bullied students who lash out in violence, whether in the form of suicide or through shooting rampages punishing teachers and students alike, the epidemic of bullying continues. Whether in the form of social ostracism, online harassment, or physical/sexual abuse, the toll bullying can take can be horrendous. And that toll hardly ends when bullied children grow up.
To read more, check out the new post on my Psychology Today blog.
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