World renown consultant facilitates anti-bullying workshops |27 July 2017

A series of training sessions on anti-bullying being held this week was officially opened yesterday by the principal secretary for education Dr Odile De Comarmond.

The anti-bullying sessions are being facilitated by Janice Richardson, an international advisor and programme coordinator at Insight, Luxembourg in areas relating to literacy, cyber-bullying of children and teenagers and the protection of their rights.

The opening ceremony of the anti-bullying working sessions was attended by the Minister for Family Affairs Jeanne Simeon, principal secretaries from various ministries, officials from the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development, partners in education, head teachers and teachers.

In her opening remarks, Mrs De Comarmond reiterated the importance of fostering appropriate environments and mechanisms in order to ensure all students enjoy their right to education in a safe and inclusive learning environment.

Mrs De Comarmond also summarised the current state of bullying in schools: “School violence and bullying occurs throughout the world and affects a significant proportion of children and adolescents. It is estimated that 246 million children and adolescents experience school violence and bullying every year.”

“With the growing access to information and communication technologies by young people, cyber bullying has become a source of special concern in Seychelles. […] The anonymity of the online world can be an aggravating factor for bullying. But most, troublingly for victims, cyber-bullying can strike at any time of the day or night and quickly reach a very wide audience,” she said.

These training sessions have been developed in the interest of giving direction and guidance to educational institutions as well as giving everyone involved the necessary tools to tackle bullying.

“The ministry has been working on finalising the ‘Anti-bullying Policy and Strategy’ for all of our educational centres. But policies and frameworks remain only that until they are translated into action. So we need capacity building for all of our partners to find out which approaches and procedures they will undertake to implement these policies,” PS De Comarmond explained.

The first training session which spanned from July 25 to 26 saw the participation of teachers, school counsellors and educational partners such as the National Council for Children (NCC) and the Ministry of Family Affairs.

The sessions will also see the participation of 40 students aged between 15 and 18 this morning as well as head teacher and school council chairpersons in the afternoon.

Parents and relevant civil society agencies are expected to be a party to another training session tomorrow.

During the course of this week’s programme, sessions will focus primarily on closing the empathy gap and build a culture of respect for children’s rights. Caregivers will also be advised on how to recognise the warning signs of bullying and how to effectively respond to such.

Students on the other hand will be empowered to prevent and address bullying rather than participate in these actions or remain by-standers.

Mrs Richardson said although she has not encountered a statistical survey on the rate and state of bullying in Seychelles she is sure that the root of these bullying, as is the case for bullying around the globe, stems from a deficiency in interaction.

The director for primary schools, Cyril Pillay, said there is presently no actual statistical survey on bullying in school in the Seychelles but that such a document is in the works.

Throughout the session Mrs Richardson aims to implement a culture of Socio-Emotional Learning (SEL) in schools, where young people are given the skills and competences to master and understand their emotions and social interactions.

“We have implemented socio-emotional learning in countries like Belgium and Greece but when you implement such things in a big country it has a lot less impact so I think that in the way the Seychelles is already tackling this it can be a very important model for the world.”

Mrs Richardson has an intensive résumé: she is a public speaker, project innovator and author of a dozen books including publications for children and adults on the impact of technology on society.

She is also the creator of ‘Safer Internet Day’, which is celebrated annually in over 100 countries worldwide and the co-founder and co-coordinator of European Safer Internet network from 2004 to 2014.

Additionally Mrs Richardson created and led European Network Against Bullying in Learning and Leisure Environments (ENABLE) which aims at eliminating bullying through the development of socio-emotional literacy.

Advisor to Unicef and various other governments Mrs Richardson is hence the ideal candidate to oversee the anti-bullying efforts being carried out by the Ministry of Education and Human Resource development.