Teens Perform Anti-Bullying Play

Two dozen students from 5 area high school in Columbus, OH decided to put on a powerful play about bullying, "The Weight Of Words". The 30 minute production was written by students, for students to help raise awareness.

A scene from the play "The Weight Of Words"

“This idea is to bring students together, to be creative, to solve issues that are actually occurring in their everyday life. I think is very powerful,” said Carrie Gilchrist, the artistic director of Lovewell Institute For Creative Arts.

18-year-old Jordan Rodriguez plays the main bully in the play and it had a strong impact on him.

“I honestly cried before, when we performed this because I'm a bully from the start of the play to the end. From the start of the play, I'm punching the gay kid and, then I end up killing him."

The group of teens will be performing ‘The Weight Of Words’ at a state thespian conference in early March.



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UK Boy Kills Himself Due To Anti-Gay Bullying

Anthony Stubbs, 16, went missing late November after telling his girlfriend Charlotte Mason, 18, he was heading to his mother's house which was just down the street. He never came back. 

Anthony and Charlotte had just had a baby, Lily, who was born in September. Although the stresses of teenage parenthood can be overwhelming, Anthony's mother Denise doesn't believe that was the problem. 

Denise says he was sexually conflicted and was bullied for it at school. 

"Anthony was getting bullied by girls for two years. He would get shouted ‘gay boy’ at, get slapped in the face, come home with his school jumper ripped and even got his phone stolen."

It was when he announced he was going to be a father that she got the courage to tell him it was OK to be gay. Denise recalls: “He shouted that he wasn’t gay and loved Charlotte, but eventually confessed he might be bisexual. I told him I knew he loved his girlfriend but that he needed to be honest with her.”

Even Anthony's girlfriend would get made fun of, being told things like, "You’re going out with a fa**ot’."

Denise had found out her son had been flirting with guys online and was worried he might be leading a secret life. Girlfriend Charlotte had found suspicious texts and had wondered if he had not been dating girls behind her back. After Anthony went missing, both mother and girlfriend decided to text back the suspicious number. 

"Our fears were confirmed as the person said they were male and then said something sexually explicit."

Anthony's body was found January 14th in the woods near his home, 6 weeks after he went missing. In his school bag was a suicide note. 







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WWE Wrestlers Teach Kids To "Be A Star"

Several WWE wrestlers visited Atlanta's Hope Hill Elementary school to join together and use their star-power to help fight bullying. Their visit was part of an initiative called Be A Star, an acronym for "Show Tolerance And Respect."  

Kofi Kingston talked about bullying during his childhood, and how he was also embarrassed to admit there were times he sat back and watched others get bullied and did nothing to help stop it. Fellow wrestlers Layla and Hornswoggle also spoke about various aspects of bullying and told kids how to be part of the solution. 

As an added bonus, 100 Hope Hill Elementary students were special guests of the WWE at Monday night's RAW event at Philips Arena.

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Students Help Create Anti-Bullying App

Lets face it, bullying is prevalent no matter where you go or where you're from - every 7 minutes, a child in the US is bullied. But kids are taking stands in their own ways to help fight and prevent bullying across the country. One great idea that came from students in Oakland County was to create an anit-bullying app. 

The app is backed by “Defeat the Label,” an anti-bullying nonprofit organization, which was approached Brilliant Chemistry, the company responsible for the app, about trying to make a strong impact.

“They had a lot of great celebrity connections and that type of thing,” Said Carl Rundell, a partner at Brilliant Chemistry. “They actually have 1.4 million high school students stand up last year against bullying. Some of the states have actually made it a day to go against bullying.”

The planned release for the app is going to be May 3rd of this year, and it will have three main functions: Reporting, engaging and analyzing.

The app will function as a database where people can annonymously report bullying, as well as commend those who help stand up again bullies. It will cost $200k to develop and may look simple, but the database will be comprable to those used by large corporations

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Bullying Blamed for 11-Year-Old London Girl's Suicide

Parents of 11-year-old Hailey Petee blame bullying for the loss of their daughter the past weekend in London, Ohio. Melinda Groce, the young girl’s mother, was aware of the bullying situation and even attempted to remove her daughter from the particular circumstances that led to her torment.   The bullying itself did not take place on school grounds but rather around town and on the school bus.

"I had her transfer to a different bus and I wouldn't let her go anywhere in town unless it was to her neighbor's, where they had built her a clubhouse, or to her friends house," Groce said.

Although it appeared to her parents that the young fifth grader was doing better, Hailey’s internal turmoil must have been too much to bear.

The London City School District is grieving along with Hailey’s parents and the community. 

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Teen Gives Anit-Bullying Advice To Other Teens

Brigitte Berman, an 18 year-old freshman at New York University, is now using her past bullying experiences to help teens. She used this, as well as other peoples stories, as inspiration to write a book - "Dorie Witt: A Guide to Surviving Bullies" which is now being used as part of the curriculum in about 20 schools across the state.

Brigitte now does presentations at schools spreading the anti bullying message to teens, including recently at the Greater New Bedford Voc-Tech.

She told the students about her experience in eighth grade when her best friend stopped speaking to her and all of the girls in her grade followed suit. One day, she walked into the cafeteria for lunch and no one would let her sit down, blocking seats with legs or bags.

The pain of that moment is something she still carries with her, she said. But it also prompted her to take action.

"Yes, I was hurt," Berman said, "but what am I going to do with that?"

That's when she decided to write her book where she encouraged students to use their voices, both to ask for help if they were being bullied and to speak up against bullying they observed.

At Voc-Tech, Pat Thibeault and Diane Hodge, two ninth-grade health teachers, have used the book to spark discussion in class while also asking ninth-graders to keep a journal responding to different sections of the book.

"I think it's made them think a little bit more aware," said Thibeault. She added later: "I think it has been very eye-opening to them that they're not the only ones who've gone through this."

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Lady Gaga Teams Up With Yale To Stop Bullying

Lady Gaga is one of the biggest names in anti-bullying. She started the Born This Way Foundation back in 2011 in an attempt to raise awareness of bullying and to teach others to embrace differences and individuality and helping youth deal with the problems they face.



She is now taking that message and making it mobile with the "Born This Way Bus". The Bus will be offering information on anti-bullying and suicide prevention services to young fans at 30 concerts, including one in Connecticut coming up in March. 


Yale scientist Dr. Marc Brackett will be monitoring and analyzing the success of the bus as it makes it's rounds. 
"The bigger project really is to help Lady Gaga and her foundation do the right kind of messaging to the world for bullying prevention and also help them evaluate what they're doing so they're doing it with real research minds behind it," said Dr. Brackett. "She's trying to eliminate the stigma associated with getting help when you need it for mental health problems but also making people aware that we have to live in a braver and kinder world."

Dr. Brackett has studied programs like the zero tolerance policies school put into place which don't have much effect in the long run.
It will be interesting to see if star power will have more of an effect on younger kids seeing as so much of today's society is celebrity-based. Do you think celebrities will get kids to listen more and bully less?


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