Challenges

More than half (67.3%) of our children in Bhutan reported that they had experienced physical violence at school. Twenty-three percent of children reported experiencing physical violence by the peers. Bullying by peers and seniors is a common problem for the children going to Higher Secondary School (boarding/central school) in Bhutan. Peer bullying is the highest (23%) among other physical violence.

There are hardly any social interventions in schools to tackle this particular issue. Each central school has about 1000 students, 80 percent of whom live in hostel (kuensel, 2015).Childrens’ coming from rural section of society, and childrens’ below class ten who are physically not strong and bold are at high risk of bullying by seniors and peers for their benefits such as; washing clothes, doing assignments, getting money and edibles and etc.

For children who face such problem of bullying in educational setting, the promise and pleasure of learning and discovery can quickly turn into pain, trauma and fear. It has profound impact on childrens’ educational outcomes, participation and performance in school. Such experiences not only ruin their present but also threaten their future, as those who experience bullying when they were juniors are more likely to become perpetrators of violence as seniors/adults.

Toward a Solution

Youth volunteer from Generation Y-Youth carried out the awareness campaign in 27 school across Bhutan since 2018, validating and collecting insights from school children. Similarly, team supported by UNICEF in 2016 also tested their workshop service with school children. Upon listening to the more than 47, 000 school children, it was found that the underlying causes of peer bullying is due to lack of courage to speak out for themselves and also lack of skills to handle different situation in life. Therefore, in order to build their confidence to speak out and stand for themselves and to increase the skills and value to foster positive relationship, Caring School Leadership Workshop is designed and tested in 2 central schools. The caring school leadership workshop is a unique user oriented workshop that offer on-site capacity building opportunities to the selected representatives from the central school to learn and implement comprehensive social and emotional life skills to handle different situation in life and also build courage to speak/express their feelings.

Objectives

• To create awareness on negative effects of bullying in school community
• To engage children through practical sessions to build courage to speak for themselves
• To educate on how to respond to peer bullying
• To engage children in carrying out local actions to educate their friends and families on peer bullying.
• To bring relevant stakeholder’s together to support reduce peer bullying in school.

The Caring School Leadership Workshop apply various approaches that fully engages the participants and encourage learning through practical exercise. The main elements of workshop are; workshop companion, storytelling, local action, my caring school campaign, community engagement.

Workshop Companion: The companion is complete guide of the workshop developed based on needs of children. It contains useful information for children to refer in times of need. It will also guide them through the post-workshop action plan.

Storytelling: The story telling is one powerful tool applied to impart the value of empathy. Mr. Karma Wangda was a victim of bullying in his society and school due to his arduous family background. He suffered severe mental stress and went through all worst experience of school days unlike other children. However, he has now overcome this fear and found his own voice. His story reached more than 40,000 children and connected them for the conviction against peer bullying. The story will help inspire other children find their voices.

Local Action: The participants will be taken through the processes of finding and defining various cause of peer bullying. In order to sustain their effort in fighting against the issue, they will develop simple, creative solutions to be implemented as post-workshop action plan. This will not only help sustain their effort but also disseminate value to wider audience for deeper impact.

My Caring School Campaign: This is the online as well as offline campaign which will be carried out by the participants. The online campaigner could use #MyCaringSchool #StopPeerBullying to disseminate the message against bullying. For mass campaign the book mark will be used as campaign material that contain useful information for children, teacher and parents to counter the incidences of peer bullying.

Community Engagement: The community leaders and parents will be engaged to bring concerted effort to support children achieve their full potential. And also to support children carry out their post workshop action plan.