Girls Inspire Others to Stop Bullying
Kiana's Story
The girls in Troop 53244 aren’t the only ones who have noticed that bullying is a real problem. Girl Scout Cadette Kiana S., 12, has learned firsthand what effects bullying can have on a person. She has been a victim of bullying since Kindergarten.
When the girls in her troop found out what was happening, they decided to put on skits to help her work on ways to handle the bullies.
“One girl pretended to be the bully, and another girl was the victim,” recalls Kiana. “The other girls would talk to the bully and get her to change her ways. It helped me figure out how I could do the same.”
Kiana has had time to try and figure out what would make people bully others, and she knows it’s mostly because something bad happened to the bully.
“Something tragic probably happened in their life,” she says. “Like a death in the family or the divorce of a parent. They’re sad, mad or confused, and just want to take it out on someone.”
Because she understands that it’s not about her, she tries to get along with the bullies by smiling and being nice to them.
“It’s not your fault you’re being bullied,” says Kiana. “Make sure you have other people you can tell who will help you.”
Just kidding just hurts.
That’s the message Girl Scout troop 53244 in North Everett wanted their classmates to understand.
“There is a lot of bullying in our school,” says Cassidy F., 13.
In an effort to raise awareness about bullying and other important issues kids her age go through, Cassidy helped create a project inspired by the Girl Scout Leadership Journey, aMAZE, which focuses on relationships and the way people interact with each other. She and her troop members created six posters and put them up around their school. The topics covered were: bullying, cliques, conflicts, gossip, friendship and peer pressure.
One of the posters about bullying tells students: “Dealing with bullies is like dealing with any road block. You work your way around them. If you see people bullying others, step in and take action.”
Cassidy knew her science teacher was putting on an anti-bullying assembly, and wanted to get her posters up in time for the event.
“A lot of people at school would come up to me and tell me the posters were cool,” Cassidy recalls. “Some even told me it made them think about things and they noticed they’d been doing stuff like that, and wanted to stop.”
Troop member Katie R., 13, said she liked the poster on friendship, since it reminded people what friendship really is, and how you’re supposed to treat others.
The troop was so excited by the response they got from other students that they plan to work on their Take Action Project by creating an advice column for kids at their school. They will collect questions about peer issues, homework and dealing with multiple teachers and classes, then put up posters with the responses. They even plan to get the school counselors involved!
“If we could take what we’re learning and help others,” says Cassidy, “it could make things better.”