As a pledge to help in eradicating the social evil of bullying, and to collectively foster love, kindness and compassion, the DPS Special Education Needs (SEN) Department organized Anti-Bullying Week from 15th to 19th April. The aim of the program was to create awareness among students and make them realize what bullying is, why it happens, and what can be done about it. A number of activities were planned to be executed in the zero period, break and off time during the entire week and the whole school participated enthusiastically. CBBC videos were screened for the Pre Primary students, focusing on imbibing strong morals and character building. An ‘anti-bullying tree’ was set up where the students reflected on their personal experience of bullying and suggested solutions for ensuing problems. The idea of posting slogans on the tree aimed to serve as a constant reminder for everyone to stand up against bullying and to foster compassion and empathy. Yoga exercises were presented for students in the morning assembly and was followed by an interesting segment ‘Helping Hands’ which encouraged students to outline their own palm on a paper and identify five people in their life whom they consider to be the most caring and supportive. ‘Compliment Flowers’ invited Primary Section students to describe their peers in one complimentary word, offering a colourful collage of sweet reminders to each class as the paper flowers were pinned up on the class soft boards, ‘Burden Bins’ dotted the campus for students to write affectionate notes saying ‘sorry’ to someone they may have hurt. A ‘Hollow Figure’ art activity for the younger students played a significant role in creating an understanding for bullying and how to promote a harmonious environment. A Flow Chart activity projected how to be responsible students and how to use appropriate reporting channels when required. Parent-volunteers joined in with storytelling sessions for junior students; narrating stories with daunting moral lessons. Focus for the Secondary Section students was to provide awareness on cyber bullying, classroom behavior and playground problems. On the last day, fervent participants from the Pre-Primary and Primary Sections dropped thank you and sorry notes in boxes marked for ‘Random Acts of Kindness’.
A successful anti-bullying program was a five-day venture which included sensitively developed series of activities by the Department of Special Education Needs and provided a unique opportunity to all the students to reflect and reconsider behavior choices thus productively fulfilled its core objectives to promote love, kindness and compassion.