MONTREAL – Thousands of students across Quebec stood up against bullying by wearing pink on Wednesday.
The National Day is dedicated to raising awareness and empowering students and high school students were seeing pink in many schools across Montreal.
What better way to kick off an awareness campaign than with a massive Montreal Alouettes football player telling students about the realities of bullying.
He may not be wearing pink, but offensive lineman Josh Bourke has nothing but admiration for the students who are taking a stand to tackle violence and intimidation.
He was at Vincent Massey Collegiate Wednesday to speak with students and come clean about his own brush with bullying.
“I know what you guys are dealing with,” he said. “I know how cruel some kids can be and believe it or not, I was bullied when I was younger – but fortunately for me I was able to just brush it off . . . but bullying can also destroy a person’s self-esteem.”
Students like Shannon Bumblis agreed. “I’ve been called ugly. I’ve been called fat and it really hurts me because it makes me feel like I’m nothing, that I’m worthless.”
Despite the zero-tolerance policy put in place in many schools – the reality is that bullying is hard to avoid, especially online.
According to experts, bullying is a learned behaviour – and that’s why teachers like Alana Cleve at Lindsay Place High School took the lead to spearhead her school’s special day.
“We’re calling today ‘Think Pink Day,'” she told Global News. “It was inspired by Pink T-Shirt Day and the roots of it come from an incident at a Nova Scotia High School.”
She’s referring to when two teenage boys from the Maritimes started to spread awareness – and pink t-shirts – after a friend of theirs was bullied for wearing pink in 2007.
“What’s really nice about this day is that it’s really student-centered and a lot of students came up with ideas for things that they wanted to do,” said Cleve. “Some students even designed their own shirts with powerful messages.”
Lisa Ancona, the vice principal at Vincent Massey Collegiate saw the same thing at her school. “The kids designed different logos against bullying., like ‘It isn’t big to make others feel small,’ so we’re very proud of our VMC students.”
Judging by the looks on students’ faces, many are more than proud to wear pink . . . even the boys.
“I used to be bullied so that’s why I’m doing this,” said Jason Smiley.
The last word goes to Montreal Alouettes player Josh Bourke, who noted, “They always say real men wear pink and I love pink, so I think it’s a great idea, a great cause.”
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