STOP BULLYING

Youth say stop to  bullying and cyberbullying

PROJECT CONTEXT

One of the most concerning social and health problem that threaten young people harmonious growth is bullying phenomenon. This phenomenon affects more and more young people that includes physical and verbal violence, threats, teasing, social exclusion and psychological persecution. Recent studies suggest that bullying in adolescence has long-term negative effects on young adult‘s mental health. Bullying and violence in schools is one of the strategic priorities of the Council of Europe Strategy on the Rights of the Child. All over Europe 3 children /teens out of 10 are bullied.

This context and the willingness of the project consortium to support young people in countering bullying led to the “Stop Bullying” project.

Consortiu

PROJECT COORDINATOR    

Be You – ROMANIA

PROJECT PARTNERS

Pendik Belediyesi – Turkey

Youthfully Yours S.K. –  Slovakia

European Youth Centre Breclav Z. S. – Czech Republic

Aim and objectives:

The aim of our project was to empower young people with human rights, democracy and active citizenship education to act against bullying and to reduce this phenomenon on long term.

Objectives:

1. to increase the level of knowledge of young people about bullying phenomenon, types of bullying, its manifestation and characteristics;
2. to raise awareness of young people about causes and consequences of bullying and cyberbullying;
3. to transfer effective methods, tools based on human rights, democracy and active citizenship education to youth to take action against bullying;
4. to inform directly minimum 100 youth from the local communities involved in this project about the negative effects of bullying and cyberbullying.

Participant Profile

The target group for the proposed activity consisted of 30 participants from Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Turkey.  The mobility involved 25 young people and 5 group leaders with experience in youth work, international projects and non-formal education.

Young people who took part in the mobility were aged between 14-19 years, interested in the topic of bullying and cyberbullying. Participants were motivated to take action as the group included affected youth by bullying or youth who were witnessing bullying. Their direct experience with aggression motivated them to be actively involved in preventing and reducing the phenomenon of bullying in their community and school, wishing to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to respond and act in the face of this phenomenon. The project also involved young people with fewer opportunities who face social obstacles, economic obstacles and cultural obstacles.

Youth Exchange Activities

The Youth Exchange Activities combined theoretical information on project topic with practical workshops based on non-formal participatory methods and experiential learning. During the 8 days of mobility participants were involved in a variety of activities on the topic of bullying and cyberbullying as:

• teambuilding activities;
• ice breakers;
• thematic workshops;
• role play and mime activities;
• debates, video campaign creation, poster creation;
• city game;
• cultural visit, intercultural evenings and socializing evenings.

Project Results

The project results are in line with the efforts and policies to prevent and tackle bullying among young people.

After participation young people have acquired and increased knowledge about bullying and cyberbullying. They can identify easily bullying forms and become more aware about causes and consequences of bullying and cyberbullying. The youth exchange equipped them with skills to act in bullying situations using human rights, active citizenship and democratic education. Participants have increased their self confidence, are more open toward cultural diversity, are more tolerant and have better knowledge of the European project and EU values.

They have created two campaign during the mobility, raising awareness of citizens and young people about the effects of bullying and cyberbullying, urging them through messages to tackle bullying. They are motivated to tackle bullying and empowered to act proprly using methods and actions based on human rights education.

Partner organizations increased their capacity to operate at European level, made exchange of good practices in project topic and youth policies regarrding bullying and cyberbullying. They are able to deliver qualitative for young people and are ready to integrate good practices, tools based on human rights education to tackle bullying.

On national, European and international level the project has potential to be replicated, to insipre similar actions, activities and awareness campaigns, motivating organizations and educational institutions to design proper activities and actions in their local communities to tackle bullying among young people using human rights education.

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