Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Hun­dreds of pupils of the Cunu­pia Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School marched along the South­ern Main Road yes­ter­day, unit­ed in con­demn­ing bul­ly­ing and vi­o­lence in all its forms. Clad in blue and white T-shirts with the words, “No Vi­o­lence! No Bul­ly­ing”, the pupils, along with their par­ents and guardians, proud­ly held aloft plac­ards with some that read, “Words hurt, choose them wise­ly” and “Bul­ly­ing is a choice, choose wise­ly.”

Along the jour­ney, the pupils would pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly shout “No!” to bul­ly­ing as well as re­ject­ing crim­i­nal acts such as mur­der, rob­beries and sex­u­al as­sault.

Prin­ci­pal Wel­don Gore told Guardian Me­dia that in­still­ing val­ues of com­pas­sion for oth­ers and a cul­ture of non-vi­o­lence is a hall­mark of the school’s DNA, as there is a ze­ro-tol­er­ance pol­i­cy re­gard­ing bul­ly­ing at the 91-year-old in­sti­tu­tion.

“We all know the sit­u­a­tion in this coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly in this area, where we have crimes such as ex­tor­tion. Right through the school, we have signs say­ing ‘No Bul­ly­ing’. We re­mind chil­dren of this on a dai­ly ba­sis through morn­ing as­sem­blies, and we have our house sys­tem where any­one caught with even the sim­plest act of bul­ly­ing, we deduct points from their house,” he ex­plained.

Yes­ter­day’s theme was “No to Vi­o­lence and Bul­ly­ing.” The prin­ci­pal said that every two years the school takes a stand on a so­cial is­sue. Gore said the theme was in­spired by a man­date hand­ed down to them from the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry.

“The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has a new ini­tia­tive called Cul­tur­al Trans­for­ma­tion Through Cur­ricu­lum En­hance­ment where we have to de­vel­op the whole child. It’s not just about aca­d­e­mics. And every school has to do a ‘No Vi­o­lence Day’ and an an­ti-bul­ly­ing cam­paign, and we did both things on one day.”

Gore said he was pleased with yes­ter­day’s turnout and the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the par­ents as well as staff as­signed to the school.