Superkids

For some good news, the Calgary Police Service has launched a program that recognizes and rewards the contribution of kids age 6-13. A uniform police constable will be giving out the “tickets” at their discretion to deserving kids. Children who are “ticketed” will have coupons sent to them where they can be use to redeem products at any location of the three sponsors – 7-11, Dairy Queen and Rogers Video. For more information about the Superkids program, please go to http://www.calgarypolice.ca/kids/superkids.html.

Kick a Ginger Day

The Calgary Herald over the weekend reported the “Kick a Ginger Day” incident in which a facebook group urges people to kick a redhead on November 20th. Reports of redheaded children being kicked started coming in and more will probably come in later. This of course is discrimination and bullying against redheads. When I first heard about it, I was thinking, that sounds like something out of South Park!! Season 9, episode 11 of South Park had Cartman (one of the character) give a school report on Ginger kids as being soulless and cannot be cured. He then got all the kids to discriminate against redheaded children with pale skin and freckles. What are some of the effect of Media on Discrimination and bullying? Have you ever been bullied because of something from Television?

Radio Drama

The Radio Drama is finally finished. All who were involved put in a lot of work and the results really showed it. Thank you to all the volunteers who were involved and thank you to Fairchild 94.7 who set up classes and workshops to guide us through the process and allow us to use their radio station to record and broadcast. The 22 minute Drama will be aired on Friday November 21 at 10:15 am on FM 94.7 Fairchild Calgary.

Cheers

Mike

Radio Drama on Bullying

Back in July, 6 volunteers from the CCCSA started on a Youth Radio Drama Project with the main theme of bullying. This project was started from scratch by the youth volunteers with the help and assistance of 94.7 Fairchild Radio (Calgary). The volunteers involve in this project spent a lot of hours together to get ideas for the script, to write the script, rehearse the script and even experiment with the recording. Fairchild Radio did a great job in educating the youth on the whole process including workshops on the history of radio, script writing, voice acting, recording and production. We plan to finish up the recording and production this month so that it can be aired as soon as possible. This project was a lot of fun and the youth learned a lot out of it.

US election

Tomorrow is the day of the US election. In this historical election, Barack Obama might become the first ethnic minority President of the United States of America. This is a breakthrough because it breaks Racial Barriers and gives us hope that we too, as a ethnic minority, can achieve the highest position in whatever organization we are in. If Obama win the election, how do you think it will effect us as Chinese Canadians or ethnic minorities in general? Will it be positive or negative for us?

Resources

Bullying on the playground occurs every 7 minutes. Teachers are only present 4% of the time when a bullying incident occurs. Those are some of the statistical information I got from taking the bully IQ test on www.b-free.ca, a website for youth on bullying. Even though bullying seems to happen frequently, there IS something we can do about it. There is a wide range of resources that people can go to or call to either get more information about bullying or to talk to someone about it. Three provincial websites that provide a lot of information, tips, and support for three different age groups are www.teamheroesca (for children), the already mentioned www.b-free.ca (for youth) and www.bullyfreealberta.ca (for adults).

I really like the S-Team Heroes website because they have this awesome game where you choose to be any of the S-team members. Your character then takes a walk where he or she will encounter different bullies. The game will then give you two options on what your character should do. If the right choice is chosen then you will move on, but if the wrong choice is chosen, the game will tell you why it’s wrong and let you choose again. This game allows you to encounter different bullying incidents and not get hurt if you make a wrong choice. Afterward you can from the experience.

What I like about the b-free.ca youth website is the inspirational stories. Sometimes just sharing your story with someone can show them that they are not alone. Sharing your courage on how you stand up to bullies by telling somebody or asking for help can show others that they are not powerless and can do something about it. Stories can be very powerful if told in the right context. This site not only have inspirational stories, they also have a bully quiz, and lots of information such as anti-bullying tactics and what to do if you are a bystander.
If any of you know of any good websites, please feel free to share them. Also feel free to share your inspirational stories.

Mike

What is Bullying?

Bullying is a problem that can occur at any setting regardless of whether it's at school, at work, or just around your neighborhood. The dictionary definition of bullying is a person who is habitually cruel or overbearing, especially to smaller or weaker people but this definition is too general and does not describe the different form of bullying. The first thing that comes to mind when I hear bullying is someone hitting, chasing or threatening another person, however bullying is not just using violence or physical force. There are other ways to hurt someone other than using physical forces and that can be considered bullying too. Name calling, teasing, ignoring someone, or telling lies about someone is a form of bullying. A non-complete list of the different types of bullying includes Physical Bullying, Cyber-Bullying, Exclusion, Teasing, and Threats. What is your idea on bullying? What do some of the bullying types mean to you?