GMHS student leads her own anti-bullying campaign

There are many different forms of bullying. Some forms include cyber, verbal, and physical. Bullying can happen in a number of places, contexts, or locations. A commonplace of bullying is school. Ninety percent of students in grades 4-8 reported being harassed or bullied, and over 10% of students who drop out of school do so because of being bullied.

A student at Galileo, Rowan Kirk, has started a campaign to combat bullying by spreading awareness. “I had a close friend of mine get bullied. I started the campaign because I knew I had to do something to help her,” Rowan said. “At the end of last school year, my campaign had a lot of supporters - until my school put an end to the campaign. I started an Instagram account to keep it alive. I decided to bring it to galileo. My friend, Lila, helped me get it started. At first, it seemed like it wasn’t making a difference, but then we started getting positive feedback. Right now, we are looking for more projects to do for our community.”

Although the campaign is going well, there was a little backlash getting it started. Rowan says, “I had peers tell me that I wasn’t really making a difference and pretty much made a big joke about it. I had posters ripped down by students. People weren’t taking me seriously, but that only made me more passionate about the cause.”

Anyone can be a victim of bullying. It’s our responsibility to put an end to it. To help Rowan’s campaign, follow @antibullying_stand_up on Instagram.