A ninth-grader wears a pink shirt to school. We can all imagine the taunts of his tormentors, the names they call him. Other students laugh and some join in with their own teasing.
All in good fun, right? Maybe, but chances are this is not the first time this 14 year-old has been singled out. Do you remember what it was like to be 14? Trying to figure out who you are, desperate to fit in or at least be left alone? Not a child anymore, but not quite an adult; experiencing new feelings, intense and confusing and sometimes scary?
Fortunately, the story doesn’t end here. Two older students witness the bullying and decide to do something about it. They go out and buy 50 pink shirts and hand them out, encouraging other students to wear them or to wear their own pink clothes to school the next day. The school was hit by a “sea of pink” when hundreds of students showed up in pink to support the cause. That is what happened at a high school in rural Nova Scotia 5 years ago.
Now, thanks to the creative actions of those two students, people across Canada are wearing pink to show that we will not tolerate bullying; that such behaviour has no place in our society.
Every seven seconds in Canada, a child is bullied. This alarming statistic fuels the passion behind CKNW’s 5th annual anti-bullying campaign Pink Shirt Day – Bullying Stops Here! We’re wearing pink. Are you?
