COCHRANE— Taking a stance against bullying, Grades 6 and 7 students from Mitford School united to host Pink Shirt Day activities.
Grade 7 students Amy Carter and Gioia Nidar, along with Grade 6 students Sophie Reuter and Aulora Drinkall helped organize Mitford School’s Pink Shirt Day.
The group joined forces with their fellow students to cultivate a bully-free environment on Wednesday (Feb. 24).
Pink Shirt Day began in Nova Scotia in 2007 after a student was bullied for wearing a pink shirt to school. The day has grown to represent a call to action encouraging Canadian's across the country to embrace cultivating kindness in their communities, while saying no to bullying.
It is a fun event to organize and it is fulfilling to see Pink Shirt Day come together after carefully planning the event.
“When the whole school is involved, it’s really cool to know you planned it,” Aulora said.
Pink Shirt Day is important because it shows other students why it is important to not be a bully and why youth should stand up when they see someone else being bullied.
“It helps them figure out that when they’re bullying a singular person that there are so many other people standing behind them and looking out for the person they’re bullying,” Amy said. “It’s really not a nice thing to do— It benefits no-one.”
Amy said they hope students better understand bullying after participating in Pink Shirt Day and how the action makes others feel.
Mitford School’s Pink Shirt Day celebrations featured two key events— A contest celebrating anti-bullying actions and a collection of activities designed to bring students together.
The Grade 6 students celebrate Random Acts of Kindness, Sophie said, and an anti-bullying art, poem and song contest was launched as part of the leadership project for the group.
The posters, songs and poems are part of a contest at the school and the first-place winner will take home a prize from Skip the Dishes and the runner-up will receive a toque with earphones.
Posters include pink shirts, quotes and drawings about bullying.
Aulora has already created her poster which reads “friends don’t let friends be bullies.”
Sophie also created two posters one with a bear and a bunny who are friends and another with a crying girl with a piece of tape over her face that reads "stop bullying." Sophie said the poster was meant to show how alone people can feel when they are being bullied.
Amy said Pink Shirt Day activities are unusual this year due to COVID-19 public health protocols— Typically students would gather for assemblies at the school but this is not possible during the pandemic.
Instead, students will be in their classrooms watching videos and hosting discussions about bullying, while engaging in team-building activities.
Gioia said two activities were planned for the Grade 7 students. The day started off with a leadership game where one person leaves the room while the rest of the class remains behind. The class copies actions indicated by a leader and then the person outside the room has to come back and guess who the leader is.
The activity was chosen because it can show how people work as a group, and how bullying can hurt someone's feelings.
The second activity was a writing prompt. Students were given sticky notes with a peer's name and asked to write kind messages about the person. The teacher then put the notes with positive messages on student's desks for them to read.
The activities were chosen to offer fun activities that would be an interactive way to bring positivity and an anti-bullying message to the classroom.
“It’s giving people some happiness,” Gioia said.
