The Importance of Consistency

Bullying Prevention Week may have ended, but bullying hasn’t. This important campaign was conceived back in 2003 by Bill Belsey. Its purpose was/is to “raise awareness about bullying… while promoting positive relationships and providing youth with real-life solutions”. 11 years later Bullying Prevention Week is still going strong, and being implemented in schools right across Canada.

The problem is it’s only a week. There are 52 weeks in a year and approximately 40 weeks in a school year. Without consistency, any momentum or progress made during Bullying Prevention Week will fade, and fast. Then our collective focus is on to the next thing, having mentally checked bullying off our list.

We see this pattern repeated over and over in our society. Remember Live 8? Live 8 was a number of benefit concerts organized during the summer of 2005. It was in support of the UK’s Make Poverty History campaign, and timed to precede the G8 summit. It succeeded in getting the G8 leaders to double their aid to poor nations from $25 billion to $50 billion over a 6 year period (between 2004 – 2010). Half the money was to go to Africa. That was great, and quite an accomplishment, but hardly solved Africa’s problems when its debt alone was over $200 billion.

It is not my aim to harp on Live 8, nor diminish its accomplishments. Cynicism is one of the most harmful attitudes infesting our society, and grinds positive progress to a halt. The problem however was after Live 8, we all collectively breathed a sigh of relief, patted ourselves on the back, and moved onto the next compelling cause, not having finished what we started. For further insight read “Race Against Time” by Stephen Lewis.

Bullying has existed for a very long time, so it will require a collective and consistent effort to combat it. This is why the central focus of the School Heroes Unite program is the creation of a student inspired Action Plan. This is a list of easy, but impactful ways students can step-up and be heroes for each other. At the end of the presentation the students pledge to take at least 2 – 3 of these actions every day. This list is then posted in their classrooms as a daily reminder.

This type of collective consistency is what lays the framework for lasting change. School Heroes Unite is committed to helping schools combat bullying through the heroism, teamwork and empathy. No single bullying prevention program will end bullying; but a school of students and staff committed to making daily acts of kindness can. Let School Heroes Unite Help!