A visual project for children to combat bullying.
Jan 2018 update: today Jan 26th a man appeared in court charged with luring young girls to meet him or send him naked pics via social media.....we are all shocked, the government and the people, we all know that the danger is out there but this incident really drove a fear through the nation, our children are unsafe!!!
The below were thoughts I have on an idea to use art as a vehicle to help young people navigate through some of these issues.... teach them to stand up for themselves, teach them to understand the nuances of manipulation techniques that a bully predator will use in order to keep them silent.
By understanding firstly the way a child thinks and how they believe things that we cant fathom, it is through this understanding that we can create pathways to communicating with children to give them VALUABLE TECHNIQUES TO DEFENDING THEMSELVES AND MORE IMPORTANTLY TO UNDERSTAND THE MANIPULATION SO THEY CAN AVOID BEING A VICTIM
This project will work on these issues with groups of children in Ireland. The children will identify the different roles in a group of friends or within a family where a lot of bullying can exist. This project will empower children to break away from this type of unhealthy group. The project will use visual Arts, photography, film, collage, sculpture, craft work to explore these difficult issues children face today, as the bully is so clever and their bullying is so damaging to children. Also the project will teach children who use bullying as a method that they don't need to, it will teach them to trust people, to rely on their own talents and skills, usually when a bully develops their own skills and talents they tend to feel more confident and less jealous, as jealousy and lack of confidence are motivations for the bully. I will give children other options, the project will give children tools to empower and face the bully rather than turn the other cheek. The tools which will be found while working on the art projects are non combative but will be empowering and confidence building... Will be continued...
