Watch above: Saskatoon students donned pink Monday in advance of the Red Cross Day of Pink on Wednesday. Joel Senick stopped by the rally and shares some personal stories about the effects of bullying.
SASKATOON – Grade 7 student Chad Thomas knows first-hand the pain bullying can cause.
“It’s a terrible thing to happen and I just don’t want anyone to feel what I felt,” said Thomas about his experience being bullied in the past.
Thomas was one of three emcees at an anti-bullying rally held Monday at the University of Saskatchewan. The event kicked off the Canadian Red Cross’ Day of Pink campaign, which will take place Wednesday.
“We’re creating a generation of kids that feel empathy that understand that people have feelings and they don’t want to hurt those feelings,” said Travis Price, the co-founder of the campaign.
In 2007, Price and a friend asked their peers to don pink in their Halifax-area school after they heard a classmate was teased for wearing the colour. Over the past five years, he’s been travelling throughout Canada and across the world spreading an anti-bullying message.
Price spoke to the roughly 1,200 students Monday about his own experience of being bullied. He stressed that the best course of action is for bystanders to step in and condemn bullying when they see it happening.
“We can’t sit behind anymore, we can’t wait for a problem to develop and then try to deal with it,” said Price.
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“We have to nip it in the bud now.”
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“We know that education is the key, we know that if kids intervene within 10 seconds it stops,” said Cindy Fuchs, the provincial director for the Red Cross in Saskatchewan.
Saskatchewan Roughrider Scott McHenry also spoke to those in attendance about having bullied others early in his life and his gratefulness for those who confronted him about it.
“You don’t want to tell a kid that you’re a bully, but I am not now and that’s the thing that I try to explain to them,” said McHenry.
“I realized in Grade 5 or 6 that you got to treat people good, treat people with respect.”
Thomas said he’s intervened when others have been bullied around him and has seen the same action from his peers.
“It’s great when I see it, it’s a boost in my confidence that bullying will stop,” said Thomas, who noted that the harassment he experienced had slowed down after consulting with a teacher.
“I hope they can understand bullying is really a bad thing and they should all be like Travis Price and stand up to bullying when it happens,” said Thomas of what he hoped the attendees of the rally took away from the hour-long program.
On Wednesday, the Red Cross says they expect thousands of people across the province to wear pink in an effort to raise awareness on how to combat bullying.
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