Campaigns launch to put an end to bullying

The Coalition Against Bullying for Children and Youth (CABCY) has launched a new campaign with the help of JWT Singapore and XM Asia.The campaign titled “Share it to end it” is a social media activation campaign designed to raise awareness and spark a conversation on bullying.JWT Singapore and XM Asia have created a 100-second illustration film for CABCY that portrays a bullying victim’s silent suffering. The film gets shorter by a millisecond each time it is shared on Facebook and will disappear after 100,000 shares, ending the victim’s misery.Once the film is wiped out, only the last frame, which people can still share on Facebook, will remain, encouraging people to continue the conversation. The site itself also provides links to CABCY’s website, where victims, families and educators can tap a host of resources, including training seminars and e-counselling.“We need to break the silence on bullying in Singapore. Victims are typically afraid or embarrassed to talk about it. It has been commonly reported by children and families that they have often been told to “learn to live with it” or “not be too sensitive” or “try to fit in” when the bullying was obviously an endless torment on a daily basis, ” said Esther Ng, founder of CABCY."This campaign is quite counter intuitive. Typically social media campaigns use collective social power to grow or spread a video, but we want people to wipe it out by sharing it,” Juhi Kalia, executive creative director at JWT Singapore said.Singapore recently passed a new anti-harassment law that criminalises bullying of children and cyber bullying, among other acts, a move that indicates how serious the matter has become.Meanwhile, the campaign launches on the back of a recent petition started by one Robin Li to stop citizen journalism site STOMP on grounds of Cyber bullying among other accusations.Li stated in his petition that STOMP has failed to rectify and set simple sensible guidelines. The petition has received over 18,000 sign ups, so far.“Netizens have been contributing fabricated stories in the expense of other citizens, picking on national service men, promotes cyber-bullying and cause unrest among fellow citizens by invading their privacy,” read the Petition adding that STOMP refuses to acknowledge the false stories.An SPH spokesperson has since told Marketing:"We are aware that as a citizen journalism website, Stomp has its detractors. But we also have a large base of supporters who visit us regularly. We also deny the accusations in the petition."