My Motivation To Enter Civic Education Workshop To Stop School Bullying In My Country
Have you ever faced a situation, when you were bullied? When a classmate, maybe an older student or someone from neighborhood, school activity or sport club hurt you, offended you or ruined your stuff? Maybe, these actions were committed by you? I’m sure, everyone has witnessed bullying. But, what I fear the most is the response in your head – “Yes. But, what is wrong with it?”. Honestly, these situations happen quite often in the world and especially in Ukraine. According to UNICEF, 67% of children in Ukraine at the age of 11-17 years, faced bullying, 24% of children consider themselves to be a victims of bullying and 48% of these victims didn’t tell anyone about the incidents. Can you believe, that every fourth child suffer from bullying? This isn’t normal! We must deal with it!
As a kid, I faced bullying several times. The first time it happened when I was in summer camp. I was 6 years old and two older boys were teasing me. A few years later, some older girls from my dance class were making fun of me and ruined my cloth. I was lucky, because I understood how I could stop being bullied and these situations never happened to me again. A lot of children suffer from it, and they need help to solve this problem! In Ukraine, we hardly have spoken about bullying. Not that the topic was especially suppressed, but we didn’t pay much attention. Honestly, we did nothing to stop it.
Just this year, our government has started to think about stopping bullying. We haven’t made much progress. For example, in European schools they are aware of abused students, make special projects to stop bullying, teach kids about warning signs, and the importance of telling someone about harassment, and how to stop it. In USA, schools do the same things plus the government provides a special call-line and web –sites to report people (for example, stopbullying. gov). A lot of countries have already decreased the amount of abuse and I will use their experience to help with this problem. So, what can I do? First, I want to start with my school and city. Before I left for USA, I had already helped with organizing a ‘Stop Bullying” project. When I return, I will make educational lessons for middle and high school students. For primary school, I will create games by which kids will be able to understand what bullying is and how to stop it. Secondly, I will co-operate with other people and make workshops and projects in my city. When children experience moral anguish and receive injuries it will affect their future. It’s really important to stop it! I have experience in organizing projects and workshops in my country. However, I have never seen how other countries, especially USA, tackle it.
With knowledge, which I will gain during the Civic Education Workshop, I will better understand how USA (a developed and successful country) solve social, cultural, political and economic problems. Also, I will have opportunity to exchange opinions with other exchange students from different countries. After CEW, I will have a lot of experience, knowledge, opinions and ways of solving issues. Summing it up, I promise you, I will use this opportunity to gain as much benefit as possible for myself and my country. When I return home, I will do workshops and events in my country to help stop bullying and deal with this problem!
