RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As they mourned the loss of a Form Four stu­dent, Jay­den Lalchan, who end­ed his own life, stu­dents and staff of St Stephen’s Col­lege par­tic­i­pat­ed in a peace march through the streets of Princes Town on Fri­day.

The walk was part of a se­ries of ac­tiv­i­ties held in line with UN­ESCO’s In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Non-Vi­o­lence, ob­served on Oc­to­ber 2.

Pres­i­dent of the Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion Anand De­onar­ine said bul­ly­ing was af­fect­ing schools through­out T&T.

“We have is­sues of bul­ly­ing and sad to say, it is an is­sue at St Stephen’s as well. As head of the PTA, I must stand with par­ents and ad­dress bul­ly­ing at St Stephen’s Col­lege.

“We are call­ing on the ad­min­is­tra­tion to take a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to bul­ly­ing in our school. Re­gard­less of what hap­pens, if one child is bul­lied, that one child is im­por­tant,” De­onar­ine said.

He al­so spoke about the stu­dent’s un­time­ly death.

“To­day we mourn the death of a Form Four stu­dent who com­mit­ted sui­cide. It is ru­moured that in­ci­dents of bul­ly­ing con­tributed to this, and we are sad­dened by it. We stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty as a par­ent body of St Stephen’s. To­day, that fam­i­ly does not have a son, and re­gard­less of the cir­cum­stances, all of us know bul­ly­ing played a part. We must ad­dress it and de­mand ze­ro tol­er­ance for bul­ly­ing,” he said.

Say­ing the loss of one life was one too many, De­onar­ine added, “We are not sat­is­fied. Jay­den Lalchan, we mourn your loss, and we ask for a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to bul­ly­ing.”

Act­ing school prin­ci­pal An­dre Bowen told Guardian Me­dia that the ini­tia­tive was or­gan­ised in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion pol­i­cy. He said the event marked the cul­mi­na­tion of a week of school ac­tiv­i­ties aimed at pro­mot­ing non-vi­o­lence.

“To­day we held our ‘No to Vi­o­lence’ walk to put a stop to vi­o­lence in all its forms. The school had a strong turnout, with sup­port from par­ents,” Bowen said.

“At St Stephen’s, we tack­le these ma­jor is­sues with our stu­dents, but there is still a need for guid­ance. Many stu­dents in rur­al ar­eas face ad­di­tion­al chal­lenges, par­tic­u­lar­ly at home.

“As an An­gli­can school, we try to make an im­pact in their homes as well, so we can ex­tend that in­flu­ence to the broad­er com­mu­ni­ty,” Bowen ex­plained.

He ac­knowl­edged that grow­ing in­sta­bil­i­ty in some house­holds was a key fac­tor in the chal­lenges faced by many stu­dents.

He not­ed that fos­ter­ing non-vi­o­lence in schools re­quired a holis­tic ap­proach, in­clud­ing in­volve­ment from fam­i­lies.