Girls talk cyberbullying at Queen's Park press conference.
Etobicoke Centre MPP Donna Cansfield, left, and Kitchener-Waterloo MPP Elizabeth Witmer speak to Grade 8 girls from Dixon Grove and Humber Valley Village Junior Middle Schools about cyberbullying. The girls meet monthly as part of the Girls in Government initiative to talk about the problem and have launched a letter-writing campaign to get the press talking about it.
Staff Photo/IAN KELSO
Cyberbullying is insidious, often anonymous and can trigger devastating consequences including teen suicide.
Thirteen Grade 8 Etobicoke girls studied and debated the escalating social problem and its potential solutions at monthly after-school meetings since January as part of a provincial government initiative called Girls in Government.
The project culminates Thursday when the Dixon Grove and Humber Valley Village JMS students hold a press conference on cyberbullying for Toronto media at Queen's Park following a tour of the Ontario Legislature.
"It can be devastating," Girls in Government's Filareti Perivolaris, 14, a Grade 8 Humber Valley Village student said of cyberbullying. "What starts out small can be escalated for many people to see. It's an invasion of privacy that can make people feel insecure."
Filareti speaks from experience. One girl she knows transferred schools after a boy posted rumours about her on the Internet.
Cyberbullying is the targeting of a child or teen by another child or youth with rumours, harassment, intimidation or threats using the Internet, interactive technologies or cellphones.
Experts warn cyberbullying can go viral and attract other kids to add their voices to the abuse.
Education critic and Kitchener-Waterloo MPP Elizabeth Witmer stressed parents, educators and politicians need to address the issue of cyberbullying before it happens.
"We have a job to do with a person who is going to be a bully. They need to know their actions are not appropriate..." Witmer, a former high school teacher, told the girls at their Girls in Government meeting Monday afternoon at Dixon Grove JMS in The Westway-Kipling Avenue area.
"We need to teach children what to do if they're bullied. How to stand up to a bully. We need to ensure you can intervene and (teach you) what you can do to prevent bullying and involve parents and families. It's not just a problem at school. It's at the mall, at the game, at the dance."
Witmer's private member's bill to declare the third week of November Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week in Ontario passed unanimously in the legislature last year.
Grade 8 girls in Witmer's Kitchener, Ont. riding are studying organ donation as their Girls in Government issue.
Speaker of the House Steve Peters, MPP for Elgin-Middlesex-London, will tour both groups of girls through the Ontario Legislature Thursday where they will sit in on Question Period. After lunch, both groups of girls will hold separate press conferences on their Girls in Government issue.
Parkdale-High Park MPP Cheri DiNovo conceived the non-partisan Girls in Government initiative three years ago as a way to get girls excited about politics, expose them to political processes at Queen's Park and encourage them to consider a career in politics.
"As Cheri DiNovo observed, when girls are young they can be interested in politics, but in high school and in university, they can become jaded about it," said Katie Preiss, Ontario Legislative intern to Etobicoke Centre MPP Donna Cansfield, who is heading the Etobicoke girls' Girls in Government initiative.
"We hope to inspire girls at a young age to carry that interest through. It's very important that women's voices are out there."
Cansfield called cyberbullying "insidious, hateful and hurtful." Need exists to increase awareness around the anonymous nature of cyberbullying, which makes it particularly challenging to stop, she said.
"When they realize that anonymity, they do terrible things," she said. "Ultimately, as Elizabeth (Witmer) said, it could lead to someone taking their life. Isn't that a terrible thing to think a word could do that?
"Words are powerful. These children are recognizing that and doing something about it. I just think that's awesome."
Earlier, the girls wrote letters about cyberbullying to Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky, with whom they will meet Thursday at Queen's Park. The girls also penned letters-to-the-editor on cyberbullying and sent them to Toronto newspapers.
For months, the girls debated solutions to cyberbullying.
"Government could put ads with catchy slogans on these websites like Facebook and Formspring so kids can see it and know they shouldn't be bullying on the Internet," said Dixon Grove JMS Grade 8 student Shifa Garewal, 13. "Educate them before they use the website so they know right from wrong."
Shifa's classmate Najma Hashi, 13, suggested solutions could come in the form of greater emphasis on cyberbullying in the school curriculum, as well as increased communication between teens and parents about the issue.
Ayesha Naseem, 14, advocates a direct approach. "The bully should know what happens to the person they bully. The bully needs to be told what they're doing is wrong."
Their teacher Erika Jander said Girls in Government has offered the teens a rare opportunity to speak via the media to the public as experts.
"As kids, they have expertise into what works and what doesn't work because they're living it," Jander said of efforts to stop cyberbullying. "With cyberbullying, kids often don't know who's saying what, who to trust. It spreads like wildfire. It's very hurtful.
"We need to say to kids, 'You don't need to be mean to be popular.' It gets kids to understand there is positive power and strength in being kind."