On September 9, 2013, 12-year-old Rebecca “Becca” Sedwick missed school.
Although the constant physical bullying she had experienced had lessened since she moved schools, the cyberbullying had become more intense. Through social media networks like Facebook and texting apps like Ask.fm and Kik, Becca was tormented with cruel messages, including “You’re ugly” and “Why don’t you drink bleach and die?”
When the incidents were reported to the school, the reaction was: “She needs to grow a thicker skin and ignore it,” Rebecca’s mother Tricia Norman tells Yahoo news and finance presenter Bianna Golodryga in an emotional interview.
However, on that September morning, Rebecca could not take it anymore, climbed a 20-meter-high tower of an old cement factory and allegedly jumped to her death.
It is reported that nearly one in three children are victims of bullying at school. And with more and more young people online these days, the terror of cyberbullying can extend outside of school and into the night. The Kind campaign, co-founded by Lauren Paul and Molly Thompson, was created to tackle these alarming statistics and in particular the damaging and pervasive phenomenon of bullying between girls.
Inspired by their own experiences as schoolchildren who were bullied, Paul and Thompson are now initiating school assemblies in schools across the United States with the mission to “raise awareness and bring healing to the negative and lasting effects of this girl-on-girl ‘crime.'”
In addition, her documentary on the subject, entitled “Finding Kind,” was shown in over 300 schools across the country.
Not only do they focus on the girls who experience bullying and the bullies themselves, but they also explore what it means to be an innocent bystander.
In the documentary, Paul meets a former elementary school classmate, Amanda, who was relentlessly bullied because of her weight. Paul, who always sat next to her in class, apologizes for not standing up for her or reporting the bullying.
Today, Paul reminds children that “you don’t necessarily have to get involved in a big, dramatic fight at school, but simply saying ‘hi’ to someone in the hallway or sitting next to someone who is sitting alone at lunch can literally change their lives.”
“When you’re a girl going to school,” Thompson explains, “it’s really hard to realise that this is just a small chapter of your life. And you just have to know that you’re not alone and that there’s a support system through the Kind Campaign with hundreds of thousands of women across the country who are there for you.”
Tricia Norman, Rebecca’s mother, who lost her daughter to bullying just over a year ago, can relate to organizations like the Kind Campaign, which give her hope that other girls won’t have to go through what Rebecca went through. With October being National Bullying Prevention Month, the Kind Campaign is currently on its sixth annual month-long national anti-bullying tour, visiting 30 schools and encouraging thousands of young people to take a stand against bullying.
Readers seeking support and information on suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or the Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467.
