Students posing in their pink themed Anti-Bullying Day photobooth at Westsyde Elementary School. (Image Credit: CFJC Today / Kent Simmonds)

By Dylana Kneeshaw

ANTI-BULLYING DAY

Kamloops students using pink to promote kindness

Feb 26, 2020 | 5:08 PM

KAMLOOPS — Since the first anti-bullying Pink Shirt Day in 2007, many school-aged kids in Canada have become aware of the lessons, and message behind the coloured shirts.

Westsyde Elementary Grade 4 teacher, Jennifer Kristjanson says most students know the anti-bullying actions need to be a daily practice.

“I think we’re going more in the direction where kids are more aware of that. And the need to be safe at school and to be in a positive learning environment — they’re really great,” she says. “Especially because we’re such a small school, with everyone knowing each other, and everyone looking out for each other.”

For the occasion, students and teachers at Westsyde Elementary spent the day promoting kind words, actions, and getting along.

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“So we have a photo booth set up for the kids, where they can come with their friends and their pink shirts and take nice photos of being together and being different,” she says. “And we also have kindness stations set up throughout the school where kids can write positive messages, and we’re putting them up around the school.”

Even if students have learned anti-bullying basics from parents or teachers, the pink shirts do serve as a reminder to keep up with kind behaviour, and stand up for others.

A focus of anti-bullying efforts is teaching students how to put those lessons into action, and become more than a bystander — something Grade 5 student Tyler Evoy says he’s already had to do.

“One time my friend was getting bullied, and I had to go step in for him, and tell them to stop.”

When asked what she took away from today’s anti-bullying activities, Grade 5 student Emma Kristjanson says it came down to a simple message.

“I was reminded to not bully anyone, and just be kind.”

While the environment may change from a school to a workplace, adults can feel the sting of hurtful behaviour as well. In 2018, WorkSafeBC dealt with more than 3,999 bullying and harassment inquiries, and in 2019, WorkSafeBC received more than 4,500 inquiries.

Beyond in-person words and actions, teens and adults can also experience bullying through social media interactions.

CFJC Today spoke with several individuals around Kamloops today about their thoughts on Pink Shirt Day, and anti-bullying efforts.

One woman said she noticed negative interactions between modern-day adults often happen through the Internet.

“Online especially, I mean it’s so easy to kind of forget that people are real people, and we’ve got to remember that words mean something to people, so we’ve got to be kind with them.”

Another woman told CFJC Today while Pink Shirt Day is important, it’s also important to teach youth about the mental impact cyber-bullying can have.

“It’s definitely more difficult to try and deal with that because you can’t put a restriction or anything on it. So I think it’s a lot harder. But kids learning that it does affect people, even if you are behind a screen and you don’t think words hurt, they do.”

After over a decade of anti-bullying days and pink shirts, the underlying message remains — preventing harm, and doing kind things for one another doesn’t have to be limited to one day a year.