Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer joined with students, business leaders and nonprofit organizations on Thursday, to launch “Stand Up Orlando,” the City’s new community-wide anti-bullying campaign. Stand Up Orlando is a partnership to provide year-round education to students, an outreach coordinator to train adults in handling bullying and to raise awareness throughout the entire community.
Stand Up Orlando aims to:
- Provide the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida’s Upstanders program, a five-session anti-bullying curriculum, in all sixth and seventh grade classrooms in all nine of the City’s public schools (Blanker, Carver, Glenridge, Howard, Jackson, Lake Nona, Lee, Memorial and Odyssey).
- Hire an outreach coordinator through The Zebra Coalition that will provide specialized bullying prevention training, such as cultural competency and sensitivity training, mental health first-aid training, bullying prevention seminars and an interactive anti-bullying curriculum for school teachers, counselors and after school program coordinators.
- Increase awareness of resources in schools and City after school programs through the 24/7 Speakout Hotline.
- Continue the “Super Kids” bullying prevention and awareness program which is hosted in all fifth grade classrooms.
“Orlando is becoming more diverse every day,” said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. “We have to teach our young people the importance of celebrating diversity and respecting others who we see as different.”
Stand Up Orlando brings together schools, educators, parents, students and the private sector to join together in our bullying prevention efforts. More than ten community sponsors made Stand Up Orlando possible, including, Florida Hospital for Children, Wayne Densch Charitable Trust and Florida Blue.
It is not known how success (or failure) of Stand Up Orlando will be determined nor the benchmarks that will be used to measure the performance of the Campaign.
Bullying is a nationwide problem that affects more than one in four children which equates to more than 13 million children who are bullied every year in the United States.
To find out how you can be a part of Stand Up Orlando go to cityoforlando.net/standup.
