Blue Ribband Life Event works to break down social norms
After the success The Blue Ribband Life Foundation’s event had last year, the foundation has started holding its “If You Really Knew Me” event at Oxford High School this month, with the first session on Jan. 23, to spread its message around the school.
“Blue Ribband Life is an organization that [has] been started to partner with the local school systems bringing the community, community leaders, and the administrative teams of schools together to provide a life skills, team building, [and] anti-bully project [with the] opportunities for different concepts to be discussed and help kids understand [how to deal] with life in the school arena, “Blue Ribband Life founder and executive director Nathaniel Rios said.
Rios started this foundation in 2011 after a shocking event in Columbia, Miss., where Rios was serving as a youth pastor. It pushed him to make a change in the school environment.
“We had a double suicide of a young lady who was attending one of the local schools there, and her boyfriend that she was dating had been being bullied and committed suicide. And, when she found that he had committed suicide, she then proceeded to take her life. It was a tragic situation for our community,” Rios said. “I just felt nudged to do whatever I could possibly [do] to create some sort of event, project, support system that could go and partner with the local schools to help students deal with and sort through the different things that life throws at our way, and because high schoolers spend the majority of their time in the schoolhouse, we felt like that was the best place to go into their worlds and try to bring support and care to them.“
Rios had approached Principal Bradley Roberson last year with the idea of holding the event. Because of its widespread momentum/growth, Roberson decided to give 50 students the chance to experience the event last year before deciding to hold it multiple times this school year.
“He started Blue Ribband Life because it gave him an opportunity to help students tear down those social norm walls that we tend to build against each other as we grow up, to fight against bullying, and to give everybody a voice,” Roberson said.
Roberson believes that the “If You Really Knew Me” event will help affirm the same characteristics as “LYP” and “Respect the O” that have become known around school.
“What this does is it puts more teeth and puts into action all of the ‘Respect the O’ characteristics that we are talking about,” Roberson said. “About treating each other with kindness, about forgiving others, thanking people for, being an encouragement for others.”
The Blue Ribband Life Foundation held the “If You Really Knew Me” event last year. After seeing the success the event had last year, Roberson and Rios decided to hold this high energy, yet serious event every Tuesday for the rest of this school year as long as enough students sign up.
“It is set for anywhere between 50 and 75 because if you have too large of a crowd, people can get lost in the crowd, “ Rios said. “On the other side, we don't want it to be so small that it seems kinda awkward. We wanna create, what we would consider, a perfect group size that can create a big crowd, but yet we break down into small groups later in the day and create that opportunity for every kid to have their voice be heard.“
Rios and the Blue Ribband Life Foundation hope that students can listen to the stories of other students and teachers around them and leave the event feeling like they are someone that can make a difference for themselves and others and feeling motivated to stand up to bullying and change the environment of the school.
“If they can look into other people’s lives and see the positive, the strengths of another human being, and what they bring to the table and don't focus on the negative or weaknesses, it can change the environment of a school culture because now we are approaching life with a clear understanding of our lives and a clear understanding of the people we are going to be connecting with, “ Rios said.
Students that attended this event on Jan. 23 enjoyed it very much. They believe that it opened their eyes to the world around them and the struggles that people go through. They hope that the school continues to hold the event, so that other students get the opportunity to experience the event.
“This event helped me to listen to my peers and get to know them in a way that I had never done before,” sophomore Libby Austin said. “It will help build a kinder community. After hearing what other people have to say, it makes you want to be nice because you don't know what people at school are going through”