Savremena celebrates Anti-Bullying Day
Sasa Zdravkovic / / Blog, I-IV, Kombinovani, Nacionalni, V-VIII / February 24, 2021
Savremena celebrates Anti-Bullying Day
Promoting tolerance on Pink Shirt Day
On the last Wednesday of February, the world celebrates Anti-Bullying Day, also known as Pink Shirt Day.
At Primary School Savremena, we marked this date by creating posters and organising a workshop on tolerance and mutual acceptance.
Savremena’s primary students supported the idea behind Pink Shirt Day. The colour pink symbolises the fight against peer violence, and a typical event on this day includes organising preventive activities for resolving conflict situations.
KINDNESS TREE: MAY VIOLENCE NEVER HAPPEN
Together with students in class VII-1, the school counsellor, Katarina Mladenović, held a workshop on resolving conflict situations. The workshop focused on tolerance and mutual acceptance. The students’ task was to design the Kindness Tree, a poster with messages of support for children experiencing peer violence.
Also, at any point, anyone could add a message of their own.
The poster hung in the hallway on the first floor generated much interest among the students. Some of them commented that caring about oneself and others is an important theme in one’s life and upbringing.
This activity gave them the chance to open up, share kindness and point to a specific problem by leaving messages.
Finally, it allowed them to use peer education to raise awareness among each other about the fact that violence shouldn’t occur in any segment of society.
THE EVENT IN CANADA THAT SPREAD THE IDEA THROUGHOUT THE WORLD
It all began in 2007 when a group of activists in a Canadian province launched an initiative after a student had been bullied for wearing a pink t-shirt in support of his mother who had cancer. His schoolmates decided to show support by wearing pink, and the idea soon caught on all around the world.
Educational communities across the globe supported the movement by encouraging people to wear pink shirts, make hearts and have pink balloons, and in Canada, the event became the National Anti-Bullying Day.
This event also inspired more and more schools to organise teams for protection against violence, neglect and discrimination, which has proven to be a positive practive that yields great results.
