youth | Not in Our Town

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   Shawyawn Sekhavat and U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan Shawyawn Sekhavat played a leadership role in the Not In Our School anti-bullying campaign at Orange High School in Pepper Pike, OH. Their campaign was filmed and shown at the White House and is featured in the BULLY Educator DVD & Toolkit. After graduating from high school in 2011, Shawyawn is now a pre-med student at Ohio University. He was one of two students who joined Not In Our School at the National PTA’s Youth Leadership Summit in Cincinnati this June. Here, Shawyawn shares his experience joining other leaders and encouraging students to be upstanders.   By Shawyawn Sekhavat The Youth Leadership Summit sponsored by the National PTA was a phenomenal way for student leaders to share their stories to help inspire youth to act out against bullying. As one of the student leaders, this was a great chance for me to showcase what my school, Orange High School in Pepper Pike, OH, has done with the Not In Our School program.
High school senior created Facebook compliments page to challenge bullying, spread positivityWe hear a lot about cyberbullying, but some students are using social media to encourage others as oppose to bringing them down.Wilson To, a high school senior in Nevada is one of those students. He launched a page called “Atech Compliments” so students could leave anonymous complimentarity messages about members of the student body.For the first year Wilson ran the page without revealing his identity. "A lot of quiet individuals don't think much of what they do, but when they get compliments for things they didn't realize about themselves, it helps to build self-esteem," he explained to The Huffington Post. The project has since become such a hit that Wilson taught administrators how to take over after graduation.
By Caitlin Grams  Not In Our School and the UNITED SIKHS presented the winning films for the NIOS and United Sikhs Anti-Bullying Video Contest at the Gurdwara Sahib in Fremont, CA in June. The contest asked Sikh students from across the state to create short videos to share their anti-bullying message and teach peers of all backgrounds about the Sikh culture and religion. The goal of the contest was to promote intercultural understanding and to help create welcoming environments that are free of bullying.
 King Chavez High School Starts NIOS Campaign Students at King Chavez High School in in San Diego, CA are ready to “break the silence” when it comes to bullying. A pack of diligent upstanders organized the school’s first anti-bullying conference June 1. Mara Mardrigal-Weiss of the San Diego County Office of Education was the keynote speaker. According to the event Facebook page, students have been working tirelessly since summer 2012 to create workshops that address bullying issues adolescents face today. Their main goal was to bring awareness to the local community about the negative effects of bullying.   Not in Our School fully supports King Chavez High students’ ambition and passion. If you would like to start a NIOS campaign at your school, then check out our Not in Our School Campaign Quickstart Guide here! It is a great resource for potential upstanders to fight bullying.   Bossard Team Dons Turbans in Solidarity
    Dear NIOS Friends and Supporters, Summer is here. To celebrate, Not In Our School has joined forces to fight bullying with Kitarah, Maverick, and Mateo, amazing artists from KutRoc Records for the Summer Youth Keep Your Head Up Campaign. Click here for your FREE download of the Keep Your Head Up package! And please enjoy this very special word from them:
NIOS is publishing blogs with the voices of LGBTQ students, teachers and community members weekly through Gay and Lesbian Pride month in June. This is the second blog post in our series. Please share these stories on Facebook and retweet them for everyone to join the powerful movement of equality that crosses all races, religions and nationalities.
  The NSLC group is composed of high school students. International students from   American University's Discover the World of Communications summer program  also participated in the activities. Photo. This summer, NIOS presented at UC Berkeley to high school students from the National Student Leadership Conference and American University’s Discover the World of Communications summer programs. Students from around the U.S. and as far away as Dubai, Syria, Australia, Korea and China shared their insights and learned more about the bullying prevention work of Not in Our School.
                  When Susan Guess of Paducah, KY learned that her 8-year-old daughter was being bullied by a classmate, she was devastated. “I’m a 37-year-old mom, with a very close and open relationship with my child, yet she kept that information private from me,” she said. Guess asked her daughter Morgan what was going on and was finally told the truth about being bullied at school. “This was an eye opening experience about how little I and the school knew about bullying,” Guess said. “There was so much ignorance.” Guess became increasingly concerned about her child and other children who suffer in silence, so she and Morgan decided to open the conversation about bullying and share their story. Guess met with school leaders to raise awareness about the growing problem of bullying at their school. She also launched an anti-bullying campaign that would raise money to bring the film Bully and Director Lee Hirsch to their town.