By Landing Colley
As part of its continued efforts to address the issues of social bullying, Beakanyang, a youth-led civil society organization at the weekend sensitized 70 students from various senior secondary schools across the Greater Banjul Area.
The sensitization seminars were held at St. Peter’s Technical and Masroor Senior Secondary schools respectively.
In his opening remarks, the Executive Director of Beakanyang, Mr. Nfamara Jawneh, urged students to take the forums seriously and to share whatever they might acquire from there with their friends.
He lamented that social bullying could have a long term social, emotional and mental effects for victims.
“We all know that bullying is happening in our schools and do force many students out of school. We therefore need to address it collectively as no child deserved to be bullied,” he noted.
Mr. Tumani Danjo, Head of Programmes at Beakanyang revealed that the sensitization formed part of their project on combating hate speech and socially bullying funded by the UNDP.
According to him, the project is being jointly implemented with Gambia Press Union and the National Youth Council.
“As you all know this is an election year, as first time voters it’s important that you also benefit from this kind of trainings to help realized our goal of ensuring peaceful elections,” he added.
He used the opportunity to called on school authorities to create an enabling environment to address social bullying and to help victims to report incidents of such rights violations.
Speaking earlier, vice principal of St. Peter’s Mr. Mendy thanked Beakanyang for such a training for students. He expressed their pleasure in hosting one of the sensitization seminars.
Mr. Yusupha Cham, Human Rights Teacher Coordinator of Masroor commended Beakanyang for its commitment in promoting the rights of students.