It’s Anti-bullying week 2018, and this year’s theme is ‘choose respect’. Anti-bullying week is organised by the Anti-Bullying Alliance (ABA). To show our support this year we wanted to share some anti-bullying campaigns from around the world…

FRANCE

In France, No to Bullying Day is similar to Anti-Bullying Week that we have here in the UK, and it was brought into practice after it was estimated that 700,000 pupils in France are bullied each year. Each year the French government hosts an annual competition to produce anti-bullying posters and videos. The winner from last year’s competition was a video produced from a group of students at the Collège Thomas Riboud at Bourg-en-Bresse, Ain.

The video involves two students, one that is being bullied and the other who is witnessing what is happening. Eventually, the witness calls the Non-au Harcèlement helpline to ask for advice. The video directly addresses key issues surrounding pupils today and reflects the theme of last year’s No to Bullying Day which was to encourage the witnesses of bullying to speak out, view the video below…

EGYPT

In conjunction with the start of the school year in September, Egypt’s first national anti-bullying campaign was launched with the cooperation of UNICEF and the funding of the European Union. The campaign encourages young people around the country to share their experiences and to suggest ways to stand up against bullying using the hashtag #IAmAgainstBullying.

Several national celebrities got involved with the campaign and shared their experiences of bullying on social media and highlight the importance of everyone getting involved to prevent bullying from happening. “Bullying disrupts the right of children to play and to learn. All children will benefit from a culture that refuses and speaks up against bullying,” said Mr Bruno Maes, UNICEF Representative in Egypt. You can view the campaigns promotional video below.

USA

In partnership with No Bully, Burger King produced an anti-bullying campaign which reported that 30% of students are bullied Worldwide each year, and bullying is the number one act of violence against young people in America today.

The campaign from Burger King launched in honour of National Bullying Prevention Month and involved a study that took place in one of their stores where a student was being bullied in front of other Burger King customers. Only 12% of the bystanders helped the student being bullied. The campaign highlights the importance of speaking out if you witness someone being bullied, and the importance that bullying is never acceptable. Watch the campaign’s official video below…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnKPEsbTo9s&feature=youtu.be

GERMANY

Safer Internet Day (SID) is an annual event that was started by The German Safer Internet Centre. The theme of last year’s safer internet day was online bullying. In honour of SID, Klicksafe (an awareness campaign promoting media literacy and adequate handling of the internet and new media) created a video series called “Ich war’s” in collaboration with several German youtube stars.

The videos tell the stories of many victims of bullying along with confessions from bullies and bystanders. The videos were a huge success with 70,000 views of the videos in less than a month and definitely made a large contribution towards raising awareness for cyberbullying in Germany. Check out the videos below!

BRAZIL

It’s not just charities and non-profit organisations who produce anti-bullying campaigns, multinational brands often do too. An example of this is how Coca-Cola noticed that their brand was being linked to a discriminatory term against the LGBT community in Brazil. The expression “Essa Coca É Fanta” (that Coke is a Fanta) was used in Brazil to bully and cause discomfort within the Brazilian LGBT community.

As a result, Coca-Cola wanted to challenge this and decided to use this in their multilingual social media marketing by creating limited addition drink ‘Coca-Cola –  É FANTA, E DAí?’ (This Coke is a Fanta, so what?) which was Fanta inside a Coca-Cola can. The limited edition drink launched in Brazil on International LGBT Pride Day. By keeping a close eye on the way in which their brand was used in Brazil on social media, Coca-Cola has turned the negative phrase into a symbol for LGBT pride in Brazil. To find out more about the campaign check out the video below…

Here at Language Insight, we think all of these campaigns do a brilliant job at spreading the message that bullying is unacceptable in any country. If you would like to get involved with anti-bullying week and see how you can donate then visit the ABA website.