Bullying at school is a long-standing problem which may involve physical aggression, abusive language, threats, social or psychological abuse. This form of violent behavior should always be taken seriously. Bullies often seek power over others and in order to achieve it they may use their physical size, age, social status, gender, gang members, acquaintances, families and other means of influence to gain power over others. It is a sad reality in many schools around the world. Fortunately, schools are now doing more to address the problem. The silence has been broken and people no longer turn a blind eye to school bullying. This project is a way to voice the problem of school violence and be heard by all interested parties. Although we aim at diminishing and even eliminating the phenomenon of bullying, our long-term goal is to prevent students from becoming "bullies" and encourage them to become "buddies" instead. This will be achieved through a holistic approach to teaching, a students-centered methodology and the development of team spirit and group work. It is vital that constructive and creative initiatives be taken, drastic changes be made, by teachers and students themselves, so as to establish a safe and friendly school environment conducive to learning. Nine secondary schools make up this multilateral partnership. The partners come from Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Lithuania, Hungary, Spain, Portugal and Italy. Our students' age ranges from 12 to 15. All participants are knowledgeable and experienced in handling aggressive incidents at school. Each school and each country has their own policies and regulations, but we are going to work altogether, bring in our experiences and expertise into this project and exchange good practices. Students will design logos, draw posters and sketches, read international literature, write stories in their mother tongue and in English, play games and take part in school competitions. They will share all these experiences with their peers from the other eight European countries. Teachers and parents will attend seminars specially organized for them. There will be a desktop research, interviews and questionnaires on local level. The needs analysis report will be published on our website and facebook page. Students, teachers and parents will benefit from this project in several ways. First of all, they will practice and improve their English, computer and communication skills. Secondly, they will increase their awareness of the bullying problem, they will learn what goes on around Europe and they will broaden their horizons. Thirdly, they will be prepared to address the problem directly and implement the educational info pack in the school curriculum. More and more students end their education prematurely. There are many reasons for this phenomenon. Some of them are connected with unfriendly atmosphere at schools. Violence, lack of esteem to other people, physical and mental aggression are important problems in everyday life at the local, national and European level. To fight with these phenomena, our particular attention should be focused on school environment. The atmosphere impacts also the quality of learning offer. We believe that our efforts will improve schools' environment, relations among students, teachers, other school's staff and parents as well, give support to students at risk of early school leaving and in the end prevent drop-outs from schools. In a long-term perspective promoting of education and counteracting the phenomenon of early-school leaving will help to build social cohesion. The final promotion conference will be held for dissemination, exploitation of the project results, also beyond the project closure. The Project Dissemination Plan and Kit (including e. g. the project leaflets, posters, website and accessories) will be created to support the dissemination process. All in all, this project is an ambitious one and is expected to bring about multiple positive and beneficial effects on students, teachers, parents and the school community as a whole. Unfortunately, the writing of this proposal coincides with the death of a young student who committed suicide after having been bullied (humiliated and tortured) by a gang of "students" at school for over a year. May he be the last victim of school bullying.
The 6th Junior High School of Lamia within Erasmus+ Ka2, implemented the Project "Be a Buddy Not a Bully" from 1/9/2015 till 1/9/2018 with the participation of Bulgary, Romania, Lithuania, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Turkey under the coordination of Greece. The first difficulty we had to deal with was the decision of Hungary not to participate in the partnership, but this was overcome with a slight modification of the contract. The 1st Transnational Meeting took place in November 2015 in Lamia, during which partners were presented and activities and outputs were assigned for the first year of the program. The Portuguese team designed the logo and the Bulgarian team created the website where partners could upload their work. The intellectual outputs completed by the end of the first year were the Needs Analysis Report (O1), the Desktop Research (O2) and the Data Base (O5). In February 2016, the coordinating school along with the Parents Association of the 6th Junior High School of Lamia organized a seminar for parents in the cultural center of Lamia Municipality, where works of art of students were exhibited. In March 2016, 35 posters created by students were also displayed in the 6th Seminar for the Teenage Health, held in Athens. During the school year 2015-2016, two Health Action programmes were implemented by the headteacher and teachers of our school, entitled: "Be a Buddy not a Bully" and "School Violence". Furthermore, third-graders made the film " Delete Cyber Bullying", using material from another film created the previous year " The Colour of Friendship". The Romanian and Turkish team also made films about bullying. In May 2016, the 2nd Transnational Meeting took place in Vilnius, Lithuania, where partners reported on the progress of their work and next year's activities were programmed. All partners were asked to be orally self-evaluated in terms of how efficient they were in achieving their goal and their comments were recorded by the coordinators. According to the partners' self - evaluation and other information collected, the coordinators completed the total quality assessement of the year. The Lithuanian partners organized and conducted a seminar for Teachers with the assistance of an expert on Bullying Phenomenon. In November 2016, the 3rd Transnational Meeting was held in Bologna, Italy, where the partners assessed their progress and programmed the next year's work. In November 2016, our school in cooperation with the Regional Directorate of Secondary Education of Central Greece and the Regional Preventive Action Group of Secondary Education prepared a seminar entitled: "Bullying: a safe and peaceful school environment " with the participation of members of Prevention Action Groups of schools in the region. In April 2017, the 4th Transnational Meeting was held in Sofia, Bulgaria, where the completed outputs Handbook Kit Tool (O6) and Computer Game: Win Friends (O4) were presented. In November 2017, the 5th Transnational Meeting took place in Lisbon, Portugal, where the project was evaluated both orally and written under the guidance of our National Agency (IKY). The guiding lines for the third and last year of the project were also presented to all partners. Lastly, during the Meeting, the intellectual output Storybook (O3) was delivered, evaluated and published. The final 6th Transnational Meeting - Dissemination Conference was held in Istanbul, Turkey, where the Project, the Partnership and the coordination were evaluated and assessed. The good practices, the outputs and the experience of the implemented activities were disseminated to teachers, parents and students through a seminar conducted by a famous Turkish Psychologist. All the attendants were informed about the project's website http://beabuddy.eu.