As the days tick away toward the start of another school year, the threat of bullying is on the minds of many. Three Kinston teenagers decided to take the initiative to spread awareness to dozens of elementary and middle schoolers right before the first bell rings for the new school year.
Victoria Kosinski, 14, Hannah Lassiter, 13 and Savannah Turlington, 14 — members of Troop 534 in the Girl Scouts — created a week-long anti-bullying class. More than 90 children from the fourth to seventh grade attended at least one session at the Boys and Girls Club this week.
“Bullying is a big issue for children, so we wanted to raise awareness,” Kosinski said. “We wanted them to see things from all point of views, what those who are disabled deal with and how they can stop others from bullying. I believe they got something from the week and hope they use it.”
The members of Troop 534 are also hoping to acquire the Silver Award, an honor of high regard in the organization.
“The Girl Scouts’ Silver Award is the second-highest award a girl scout can get,” Turlington said. “We made a community assessment and went with anti-bullying to try to make it a better place.”
Sonya Howell, unit director for the Boys and Girls Club, was a former Girl Scouts’ troop leader and had a daughter who received her Silver and Gold awards. Howell wanted to help the Troop 534 members earn their badges.
“The girls needed a large group and I had one with the Boys and Girls Club,” Howell. “I thought the event was wonderful because bullying is a huge problem everywhere, not just in schools. The girls brought speakers and preventative ways to stop bullies.”
The Salvation Army teamed up with the Girl Scouts and Boys and Girls Club as well.
“It’s important to stress the importance of anti-bullying,” Salvation Army Captain Curtis Kratz said. “When you pick on someone, it could hurt their psyche for life. You can’t see emotional scars; it’s not like a black eye or stitches.”
Each day during the week-long session, children would see representatives from places like East Point, RADD (Recreational Activities for the Developmentally Disabled) and SAFE (Safe Affirming Family Environment), along with guest speakers who gave stories about bullying, ways to prevent it and statistics.
“Every 30 minutes, a child attempts suicide because of bullying,” Jones said, as he addressed the children on Friday during the graduation ceremony. “Every seven minutes, a child is bullied. One out of every five students has admitted to being bullied, 43 percent have been cyber-bullied and 9,400 have been physically attacked in school.”
Dezjhanna Grady, a seventh-grader at Rochelle Middle School, said she had seen many changes over the week.
“When we first started, there were a lot of kids bullying or being bullied, but hardly anyone was doing that in the end,” Grady said. “Bullying is wrong and you shouldn’t do it. You have to stand up to a bully.”
Co-troop leader Colleen Kosinki believes the 90 students in attendance could speak volumes to their classmates in the upcoming year.
“If 90 kids go back to school and not bully, we can have a much better school year,” Colleen Kosinski said.”
The Troop 534 members received grants from Blue Mountain Flowers and prizes from Galaxy to hand to the participants, but considerably came out of pocket as well.
“These girls spent about $300 to buy supplies and other necessary items for this project,” Kosinski said. “They had been saving to go to New York, but felt this was more important and I’m truly proud of them.”
For the Girl Scouts, the money didn’t matter, as long as their message reached the children. Lassiter hopes the seminar will encourage the children to get people in their schools to stop bullying.
“It’s like a ripple in a pond,” Lassiter said. “Hopefully in the year 4,000-something, bullying will be an ancient thing like the tyrannosaurus rex.”
Junious Smith III can be reached at 252-559-1077 or Junious.Smith@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JuniousSmithIII.
Breakout box
Here are a few ways to deal with bullying
n Know what kind of bully you are dealing with
n Work your way around the bullies
n Show minimal reaction to bullying
n Do not make jokes at your own expense to try to prove that there is nothing they can do to hurt your feelings; instead, reflect insults back to a verbal attacker
n Report all bullying to an authority figure
n Help others
n Take martial art lessons and learn self defense
n Outsmart the bully
Source: wikiHow