Stu­dents from Ch­agua­nas North Sec­ondary School are de­vel­op­ing an an­ti-bul­ly­ing app that will al­low anony­mous re­port­ing of bul­ly­ing in schools.

The app will al­so pro­vide on­line coun­selling and im­me­di­ate help and has re­ceived com­men­da­tion from As­sis­tant to the Charge` d` Af­fairs of the Unit­ed States Em­bassy Mon­i­ca Morse.

Speak­ing to re­porters at the Caribbean Colour Splash Sec­ondary Schools An­ti-Bul­ly­ing con­fer­ence held at SAPA in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Morse said she will speak to of­fi­cials at the Em­bassy to pro­vide fur­ther sup­port.

"I am so im­pressed. What an amaz­ing app! I nev­er heard of any­thing like this be­fore. I am so glad that chil­dren have an anony­mous way to get the help that they need," she said. Morse added, " I think chil­dren are fac­ing sui­cide be­cause of bul­ly­ing and they need in­spi­ra­tion and guid­ance. The app will pro­vide this. It is some­thing that we need be­cause it takes a vil­lage to bring up a child," Morse added.

She said even though she is yet to get the of­fi­cial word of the Em­bassy, she in­tend­ed to make rep­re­sen­ta­tion for the an­ti-bul­ly­ing pro­gramme to be tak­en across all schools.

"We are in­volved with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and we are do­ing some work with an­ti-bul­ly­ing pro­grammes. We in­tend to pro­vide all the sup­port we can," Morse added.

Say­ing it was im­por­tant for stu­dents to un­der­stand the ef­fects of bul­ly­ing, Morse said she was bul­lied as a child af­ter her fa­ther com­mit­ted sui­cide in a pub­lic place.

She said oth­er chil­dren bul­lied her un­til col­lege and be­cause she felt no self-worth, she mar­ried a man who al­so phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly abused her.

Morse said she was able to break free from the cy­cle of be­ing a vic­tim of bul­ly­ing by de­vel­op­ing self-re­spect and self-love.

Al­bert Mar­shall, project man­ag­er for Caribbean Colour Splash said the app is the brain­child of the stu­dents of Ch­agua­nas North Sec­ondary.

"They are de­vel­op­ing it and we are on­ly pro­vid­ing a plat­form for them to in­tro­duce it. It is a pro­to­type and it will be launched in their own school first be­fore they roll it out to oth­er schools," Mar­shall said.

He not­ed that the an­ti-bul­ly­ing con­fer­ence was meant to end bul­ly­ing in schools.

"We have been shar­ing strate­gies which stu­dents can ap­ply im­me­di­ate­ly to end bul­ly­ing. The app is be­ing de­vel­oped by the stu­dents and the pur­pose is to get stu­dents to re­spond and ac­knowl­edge bul­ly­ing as soon as it hap­pens," Mar­shall said.

He added that the stu­dents will be able to anony­mous­ly alert guid­ance coun­sel­lors to what is hap­pen­ing in their schools

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, school teacher Tiffany Ali said the stu­dents were part of a group called Be Dif­fer­ent led by her­self and an­oth­er teacher Be­lin­da Gor­don.

She said the stu­dents Seanelle Reg­is, Lawan­da John and Shau`ri Gor­don as­sist­ed by Ravin Ram­s­ingh of Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, have al­ready de­signed the app. She not­ed that the idea orig­i­nat­ed from a na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion called Girls in ICT in which the stu­dents won first place with their idea.

The stu­dents then en­tered an­oth­er com­pe­ti­tion spon­sored by the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank called Start-up Week­end and won US$10,000 to bring their idea to fruition.

Three app de­vel­op­ers were con­sult­ed and Ali said the app is cur­rent­ly be­ing de­vel­oped. How­ev­er, she said ad­di­tion­al fund­ing was need­ed.

"We are try­ing to get the app built out and we will launch it in three pi­lot schools to see how it is go­ing. We don't have enough fund­ing. We are work­ing out the fi­nances and work­ing with lo­cal de­vel­op­ers about the fea­tures we want. We will be thank­ful if we get fund­ing and we hope to roll out the app na­tion­al­ly by next year," Ali said.