Despite the existence of anti-bullying strategies and procedures, bullying in my school, as well as in the whole country, is increasing every year. The cause of this is partially the bad situation in the country, where violence is generated daily in public life but also general alienation of people, their lack of empathy due to social networks and online communication, which is the world trend. It is very hard to fight this problem locally, especially when higher instances are not doing their job.
To tackle this problem, this school year a colleague from a neighboring school and I organized a joint project with our students. The project was done according to Design for Change methodology. The students concluded that the biggest problem of their school community was mental and verbal bullying. After a lot of workshops on the topic, public opinion polls, analysis and filtering of ideas, we created a motivational obstacle course called CHOOSE THE RIGHT PATH. The course consists of a dozen fun physical obstacles combined with problem situations (moral issues) that the participants solve while crossing the stages of the course. The topics of moral issues refer to verbal and mental violence that children encounter in everyday school life, and for each situation they are offered answers. The goal of the course is not competition, but overcoming physical and metaphorical obstacles and learning along the way, choosing the right path in life and treating other people with respect.
The course has already been held twice and the project has become a part of the official school documents of both schools which means it's meant to be long-term. This is our "modest" and creative way to deal with bullying in our educational establishment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrR2QmJJssw
This link takes you to the summary of our creative process and the phases we went through while building our obstacle course that we're proud of.