Local Non-Profit Launches Nationwide Anti-Bullying Campaign

The Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control declared school bullying as a “national health epidemic” due to its frequency of occurrence and the compounded health-related conditions that appear in both the bullied and the person doing the bullying. Every day, impressionable youth increasingly see acts of bullying, incivility, and bigotry being normalized and even trivialized. Among all public-school students in America today, Muslim children have the highest incidence of being victimized by bullies. Similarly, Muslim children are found to be the least likely population to report to teachers, parents, or others that they have been bullied. Child psychologists uniformly state that childhood trauma will likely have a profound negative effect on their mental and emotional makeup as adults.

The Islamic Circle of North America, through its Civic Engagement Division, ICNA Council for Social Justice, is launching a one-year Campaign, 2017-2018, “Protecting Our Children: Stop School Bullying.”

The purpose of the campaign is to not only join the chorus of voices being raised across the nation against bullying, but to provide practical guidance on how to prevent and/or reduce the number of incidents. Physical and financial resources will be allocated to provide “Safe Spaces” for victims and potential victims of bullying where they and their family members can receive counseling and emotional support and guidance.

Secondly, the Campaign is designed to galvanize Parent Teacher Associations, teacher unions, School Superintendents, principals and vice principals, teachers, guidance counselors, County Commissioners, City Councilmen, education board members, other elected officials, children and parents to proactively address the scourge of school bullying.

The campaign will also include webinars, town hall meetings with students, workshops, panel discussions in conventions, etc. all related to fighting back against bullying.

To help volunteer, please reach out to info@icnacsj.org.