November 12 to 17 is Bullying Awareness Week in Canada [2]. To mark the week, MediaSmarts has joined Facebook, Family Channel, PREVNet, Concerned Children’s Advertisers, Kids Help Phone, Free The Children and STOPcyberbullying.org to launch the Be Bold: Stop Bullying campaign in Canada.

The campaign centers on an interactive social media pledge app [3] that enables teens, parents and educators to make a personal commitment to help stop bullying and recruit their friends to join them in this commitment. It is aimed specifically at inspiring bystanders who are witnesses to bullying.  The campaign enables teens, parents and educators to take a pledge to specific actions that will help stop bullying, share their pledge and stories with friends and family, recruit others to join them in this commitment, and start their own school-based bullying prevention groups on Facebook.

In addition to taking the pledge, we encourage parents and educators to take a look at our cyberbullying section which explores the myths and realities of cyberbullying and offers tips for adults to help young people deal with this issue. The section includes backgrounders, tip sheets, lesson plans and more. http://mediasmarts.ca/cyberbullying [4].