Peter Jones is the Digital Volunteers Manager at Beatbullying:
Bullying is a malaise that affects us all. Practically everyone has had some experience of it, whether at school or work, as the victim, the witness or even as a bully. It is especially widespread amongst young people. Our research repeatedly indicates that 1 in 3 children and young people experience bullying and emotional child on child violence.
When bullying goes unchecked in our schools and communities, the breeding ground for gang culture, crime and violence prospers. Acknowledgement of these consequences is reflected in the growing number of support services for young people experiencing ‘offline’ bullying. At present, though, not enough exists to support them in the online environment, where we know at least 40% of young people have experienced some kind of cyberbullying.
CyberMentors is the latest project by Beatbullying designed to meet this need. CyberMentors.org.uk is a new service for the digital age: a traditional mentoring system delivered via a social networking site. Young people aged 10-25 are trained as CyberMentors, in schools and online, in universities and workplaces across the UK, so that they can offer support to other young people who have/are experiencing cyberbullying.
Beatbullying is working with a variety of partners in order to populate the site with young, dynamic and empathetic staff from companies across England. One of these is City & Guilds – a member of City Action.
Kathryn Kirkpatrick from City & Guilds has this to say about being involved with CyberMentors:
“We were drawn to working with Beatbullying on the CyberMentoring project due to the huge difference staff can make by using only a small amount of time. The scheme fits in well with our CSER programme and was easy to sign up for. Staff attend a one day training course and then volunteer for just 2 hours a week online. The feedback from staff was great and 100% of those that were trained said that being able to take part in this award winning and pioneering social phenomenon made them feel good about the company they work for”.
Beatbullying is always looking for new partners to work with on CyberMentors. We are holding our next training session on Saturday 20th February 2010 at our offices in Crystal Palace. Training will be from 11am until 4.30pm. If you, or anyone you know is 20-25 and interested in volunteering online for just 2 hours a week, please drop us a quick email to digitalvolunteering@beatbullying.org
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