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Our Mission: Using real life stories and personal examples, bullies, bystanders and victims will understand there are alternatives to violence and solutions to hate. Respect and responsibility is also the focus of the third person in the triad of bullying: the bystander. We must let them know they are morally involved. Empowering the bystander and giving them responsibility is of critical importance.
Dear Members,
Cartoon Network and Bitstrips Team to Fight Bullying Through Comics
New Campaign Lets Kids Create and Share Their Own Comic Strips About How to Stop Bullying
NEW YORK, October 26, 2011 – This October and November, kids across the country can share ideas about how to prevent bullying by making their own comic strips in the “Stop Bullying: Speak Up Comic Challenge.” Created by Cartoon Network and Bitstrips in recognition of National Bullying Prevention Month (October), the campaign gives kids a creative and novel way to add their voice to the national discussion on bullying.
Accessible at www.stopbullyingcomics.com, the “Stop Bullying: Speak Up Comic Challenge” enables anyone to make great-looking comics without having to draw. Kids start by turning themselves into a cartoon avatar, and then become part of a comic strip where it’s up to them to resolve a bullying problem: What should they do if they see someone being bullied? What if they’re a victim, or even the bully? Kids finish the comic using their own ideas and words, and can share them in an online gallery. Following Bullying Prevention Month, all the best entries will be published in a downloadable comic anthology. Since launching at the start of October, 100,000 visitors have logged over a million page views and created more than 17,000 comics on the website.
Schools looking for a creative way to introduce bullying as a topic of discussion can enter the “Stop Bullying: Speak Up Comic Challenge” too. Teachers can choose from eight bullying prevention activities and assign them to students through a secure virtual classroom. Finished comics can be shared by teachers in their own classroom gallery, where they can be read by other students, parents and the whole community.
“Students play a powerful role in stopping bullying. Bitstrips is a unique, creative way to give young people a strong, effective voice,” said Alice Cahn, Cartoon Network vice president of social responsibility. “We are delighted to be working with Bitstrips and Bitstrips for Schools to extend the reach of our Stop Bullying: Speak Up campaign.”
“In all of the discussion about bullying in recent years, kids’ perspectives have generally been underrepresented,” said Bitstrips CEO Jacob Blackstock. “By introducing the subject through comics—a format kids love—we hope to really get them talking and thinking critically about what they can do to reduce bullying at school and in their social lives. We think that this initiative could be the start of something very big in that respect.”
The “Stop Bullying: Speak Up Comic Challenge” is part of Cartoon Network’s flagship Stop Bullying: Speak Up campaign, and runs through November 2011. Created with guidance and advice from a select team of bullying experts, Stop Bullying: Speak Up launched in October 2010, focused on motivating bystanders with safe, empowering strategies and tactics to speak up and help prevent bullying. In September 2011, the network partnered with its parent-company Time Warner and Facebook to launch an interactive Stop Bullying: Speak Up Social Pledge App that enables educators, parents, and kids to make a personal commitment—and recruit others to join them—to help stop bullying.
Cartoon Network (CartoonNetwork.com), currently seen in more than 99 million U.S. homes and 168 countries around the world, is Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.’s ad-supported cable service now available in HD offering the best in original, acquired and classic entertainment for youth and families. Nightly from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. (ET, PT), Cartoon Network shares its channel space with Adult Swim, a late-night destination showcasing original and acquired animated and live-action programming for young adults 18-34.
Bitstrips Inc. is the company behind Bitstrips for Schools, the innovative educational website that’s been used by nearly a million teachers and students around the world to create 6 million original comic strips. It features fun and easy-to-use tools that enable any student to make professional-looking comics without drawing a line, and turns any topic into a creative and collaborative classroom activity. With over 20,000 new comics created each day, Bitstrips for Schools is leading the charge of introducing comics to the classroom.
Mike Bogdanski
America's ANTI Bully
860-315-0205
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