Pekanbaru, March 13, 2020 - At seven in the morning on a sunny Friday, students from the Madrasah Aliyah Negeri 4 Pekanbaru (MAN 4 Pekanbaru) gathered at Al Fatih Mosque. They were very enthusiastic to listen to the exposure of social campaigns about harassment, a problem that often occurs among young people today.
The event which was attended by around 120 MAN 4 Pekanbaru students was a form of an initiative carried out by the MAN 4 Pekanbaru student fields together with Youth Education World Warrior (FPPDP) Riau Province and U-Report Indonesia. This social campaign aims to educate students about bullying, what are the impacts, and how to overcome them. The event was opened with a presentation from the Chairman of the Madrasa Quality Assurance Team (TPMM), Prawira Mahardika, S.Pd as the Chairperson of the Riau Province FPPDP. He explained that harassment was a common problem among young people and needed cooperation from each individual through their respective capacities to stop this problem.
"Bullying can happen anywhere, anytime, and to anyone. Teasing each other to use rough dictionaries is a bullying activity that is very familiar in the daily dialogue of school students in Indonesia. Cooperation roles between parents, teachers or adults around children, very influential to suppress bullying activities ", explained Prawira.
After a presentation by the Chairperson of the Riau Province FPPDP, the event continued with education about bullying by Riau U-Reporter Shafa Siregar. In his explanation, Shafa gave information about what forms of harassment and how to react to them. In addition, as a U-Reporter, Shafa also provides brief information about U-Report as a platform for young people to voice their opinions. This is the second time Shafa has carried out socialization on anti-bullying. Previously, Shafa also conducted similar activities, namely Cyberbullying Socialization in the framework of World Safe Internet Day at SMAN 10 Pekanbaru.
The activity was continued with a question and answer session accompanied by official merchandise from U-Report for anyone who actively participated in this question and answers session. Students participate by answering questions about World SaferInternet Day and UNICEF Indonesia. One student named Dwi (16 years) was happy with this social campaign at his school. He considered that this social campaign had positive benefits, especially among teenagers. "I am very happy to visit your brothers here. We are excited about it, hopefully, we will meet again and discuss motivational matters again and be more crowded again," explained Dwi.
This harassment is real in our environment, even in the school environment, as is the case with a number of harassment cases in a number of schools in Indonesia lately. For that, we must all work together and become an upstander (someone who takes action on harassing behaviour), and dare to report to teachers, parents or other trusted adults, if we see harassment events around us.
