Sash­ca Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The Coun­selling De­part­ment of Ser­vol’s South/Cen­tral Zone held its An­ti-Bul­ly­ing Walk on March 28 to de­liv­er a strong mes­sage of ze­ro tol­er­ance for all forms of bul­ly­ing.

The walk start­ed at Skin­ner Park in San Fer­nan­do and end­ed in La Ro­main.

In an in­ter­view along the route, Ser­vol PRO Camille Greenidge-Charles ex­plained that the march was or­gan­ised to sen­si­tise the pub­lic about the harm­ful ef­fects of bul­ly­ing.

“Ser­vol has not been ex­empt­ed from the ef­fects of that tox­ic, dis­heart­en­ing, de­struc­tive el­e­ment in so­ci­ety,” she said.

“We have not been spared, and we are say­ing that we have ze­ro tol­er­ance for it, and we de­cid­ed to take a stand.”

Re­fer­ring to re­cent com­ments about an in­ci­dent in­volv­ing Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young three decades ago, Greenidge-Charles warned against politi­cis­ing bul­ly­ing.

“We are not politi­cis­ing this is­sue be­cause it is so tox­ic. It doesn’t just end with gov­ern­ment, every cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go needs to be held ac­count­able for these is­sues,” she said.

Greenidge-Charles added that be­cause of the ad­verse psy­cho­log­i­cal ef­fects of bul­ly­ing, there is a need for leg­is­la­tion that en­sures bul­lies are held ac­count­able.

She said: “Too many times we see is­sues of bul­ly­ing be­ing raised, and noth­ing hap­pens. Peo­ple are not be­ing held re­spon­si­ble for their ac­tions. Let’s start there. Put some­thing in place for the schools, for the work­place, so that if some­one is af­fect­ed by bul­ly­ing, some­thing is done. Bul­ly­ing should be a crime. If you do the crime, do the time.”

Par­tic­i­pants in the work car­ried ban­ners and plac­ards with an­ti-bul­ly­ing mes­sages and were ac­com­pa­nied by a mu­sic truck and moko jumbies.

Tak­ing part were stu­dents, tu­tors and par­ents from the five schools with­in Ser­vol’s South/Cen­tral Zone.

Ser­vol, a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion that re­ceives a sub­ven­tion from the gov­ern­ment, caters to chil­dren and young peo­ple up to 23 years old.

“We want to send a clear mes­sage let­ting the na­tion know we are not tol­er­at­ing it,” Greenidge-Charles said.