Faith (third left) hands over an info sheet on the workshop to Fatimah. Also seen here are Audry (second left) and others.
KUCHING: Soroptimist International Club Kuching Chapter (SI Kuching) is tackling bullying in schools in its next ‘Walk the Talk’ campaign, scheduled for January next year.
There is an urgent need to address this problem together with stakeholders as cases are increasing.
“We will be holding a workshop for teachers, principals and school counsellors so we can sit down together and look at the statistics, look at how we can help, and reach out to the relevant parties,” said SI Kuching immediate past president Audry Wan Ullok.
She and several other members, including president Faith Villahermosa Jap, visited Minister of Welfare, Women and Family Wellbeing Datuk Fatimah Abdullah at her office to discuss the matter yesterday.
The workshop could create awareness and provide parents or guardians with a standard operating procedure on what to do if their child was being bullied, said Fatimah.
“Ultimately, we want to reduce occurrences of bullying, especially in schools.”
She said videos were sometimes passed around showing a victim being attacked by bullies.
“It is horrifying to see a child being bullied. This will impact them emotionally and the effect is long lasting if they do not receive counselling. Bullies will also have to be dealt with.
“Punishment such as suspension or expulsion from school is one thing. We also must find out why they want to bully. There must be a reason and they also need help,” she said.
SI is one of the largest women’s service organisations in the world with over 95,000 members in 125 countries.