The annual “Pink Shirt Day” event is coming up soon across Canada, and this event will be marked in Weyburn with a Pink Shirt Day concert on Friday, Feb. 28 for all elementary school students at the Cugnet Centre.
This event began as a response to a bullying situation, where a boy had been bullied for wearing a pink shirt, and some classmates took it on themselves to organize other students to support this boy by wearing pink shirts.
This has become a national movement that symbolizes the wish to do away with bullying in schools, and every year students are encouraged to wear a pink shirt and to hear messages that promote tolerance and dialogue and kindness between people.
Bullying continues to be an issue for students to deal with, and with the advent of social media platforms and most people having a smart phone,bullying online and via social media has developed into another form of abuse that needs addressing.
At the most recent board meeting for Southeast Cornerstone School Division, some data was shared from an extensive survey of students in Grades 7 to 12 by the Saskatchewan Alliance for Youth and Community Well-Being (SAYCW), which was done all across the province. There was such a strong response to the survey that school divisions have only just now received their results, and individual school results will be delivered soon.
These survey have shown there are issues that need addressing in regards to mental health, some of them a direct result of actions like bullying. For example, there were questions that asked students if they feel they are balanced in their lives, in four areas: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.
The vast majority of respondents, both male and female, said they feel their lives are imbalanced. On the issue of self-harm and suicide, there were 17 per cent who indicated they have harmed themselves in a deliberate way but wasn’t intended to be suicidal, while several indicated they had considered, planned and attempted suicide. Out of 2,608 respondents, 531 had said were considering it or attempted it. This clearly indicates there is work needed to meet the mental health needs of our students.
