Back to search

STRONG together

2025-1-LV02-KA152-YOU-0003032592025Mobility of young peopleongoing
Countries: LV|ES|EE|HU · Grant: €24,791
Physical and mental health, well-beingPrevention of bullying

Objectives

For young people, relationships with peers are very important in forming and strengthening their identity. A large part of these relationships take place at school, because that is where they spend most of their day. For young people, school is not only a place where friendships are formed, but it is also often an environment full of negative emotions. At school, young people not only make friends with each other, but also conflict and hurt each other - humiliate, talk about each other, physically affect each other. The official term for these events in the school environment is bullying. This means that children behave systematically, deliberately and negatively towards each other in a school environment, where the balance of power is not equal. The goal of such behavior is to humiliate one or more children by causing them physical harm or affecting them emotionally. Looking at data on mobbing in the European Union, it was revealed that on average 23% of students have experienced mobbing (OECD PISA study). A study conducted by Riga Stradiņš University in 2023, covering data from 127 Latvian schools, revealed that 40.2% of students have experienced bullying at least once in the last few months. What is alarming is that 30% of students would not tell anyone about these incidents, believing that the situation would not change anyway, and 13% of respondents admitted that they were embarrassed to talk about what they had experienced and therefore would keep it to themselves. A study was also conducted at Plavinas Secondary School, which revealed that 39% (136 respondents) had encountered or witnessed mobbing in the last 12 months. The survey also indicated that mobbing has a moderate negative impact on their lives, self-esteem and relationships with others. Of course, it affects young people more, this is only a part of the students. Mobbing seriously affects the mental health of a young person. As soon as a young person encounters mobbing in a school environment, it also contributes to absenteeism and a decrease in the level of academic achievement. Not to mention psychosomatic symptoms (headaches, migraines, stomachaches, etc.). It should also be mentioned here that self-esteem, fear, negative thoughts, etc. Of course, we young people cannot suddenly change things and stop such behavior from other young people. But what we do know is that an environment where it is recognized and not perceived as the norm is unsuitable for the spread of mobbing. Therefore, what we can do is talk about it among ourselves, teach each other how to recognize such situations, how not to be indifferent and how to talk to adults about such situations. Since we are not the only country and school, and young people who face such a problem, it is valuable to also communicate with other young people from other countries and schools to gain experience from them on how they deal with this. It is bad, but it is good to realize that we can help each other. We, young people, want to live in a peaceful and inclusive society, where there is no place for any kind of discrimination and exclusion. We believe that it is important that for us, young people, the school environment, regardless of nationality, country or race, is both physically and emotionally safe in which we can learn. If this is not provided to us, then we must be knowledgeable, able to recognize bullying and have tools so that we and other young people can deal with situations when mobbing is directed against us or we witness such a situation. Therefore, our main goal is: To strengthen young people's knowledge and skills in recognizing and preventing bullying, promoting understanding of its impact and providing practical tools for creating a safe, respectful and inclusive environment.

Project partners (4)