#STANDTOGETHER Campaign

Science voluntarism is generally considered an altruistic activity where an individual or

group provides services for no financial or social gain but to benefit another person, group or
organization. At the same time, voluntarism defined as voluntary action is the principle that
individuals are free to choose goals and how to achieve them within the bounds of certain
societal and cultural constraints. Volunteering is multi-faceted in its importance to our
society. It enriches our society, brings us together as a community and helps keep businesses
and other organizations afloat. Volunteering is important and everyone should actively
participated in volunteer activity. It’s not only about the impacts volunteers can make in the
lives of those less fortunate but the role it can play in making the participants more tolerant
individuals and giving towards the global community. This is the main reason why some
schools and colleges now make volunteering a compulsory requirement for their students.
Volunteering can bring a whole host of benefits to participants when it comes to boosting
their job prospects or enhancing their self-confidence and skills.

Volunteer activity will offer new life experiences and insights into social and developmental
issues, as well as the inner workings of non-governmental and community organizations. It
might give the opportunity to travel abroad and experience diverse cultures, assisting local
communities or environmental projects while seeing the world at the same time. Studies also
indicate that the social interaction of volunteering can help to combat mental health issues,
anxiety and depression. It will challenge some of previously held beliefs and encourage to be
a more tolerant individual, respectful of differences in religion and culture. Other than that,
participating in volunteer activities will boost career options. Through the experiences while
volunteering, we may get a better idea of the career path that we have chosen and whether or
not it’s right , saving ourself a lot of backtracking in the future.

Malaysia government and private companies had conducted many volunteer program such as
WWF-Malaysia, SOLS 24/7, SUKA society, Yayasan Generasi Gemilang, Hospitals Beyond
Boundaries, Need To Feed The Need, PERTIWI Soup Kitchen and PAWS. Among this
volunteer program, one of the most popular volunteer program in Malaysia is
#STANDTOGETHER campaign. The theme of this campaign is ending bully in school
through kindness.

Bullying is defined as when an individual or a group of people with more power, repeatedly
and intentionally cause hurt or harm to another person or group of people who feel helpless to
respond. While the bullying definition is broad and can occur in a variety of environments it
usually is a relationship problem and requires relationship-based solutions. There are many
different types of bullying that can be experienced by children such as physical bullying,
social bullying, verbal bullying and cyber bullying. Physical bullying includes hitting,
kicking, tripping, pinching and pushing or damaging property. Physical bullying causes both
short term and long term damage. Verbal bullying includes name calling, insults, teasing,
intimidation, homophobic or racist remarks, or verbal abuse. While verbal bullying can start
off harmless, it can escalate to levels which start affecting the individual target. Social
bullying, sometimes referred to as covert bullying, is often harder to recognise and can be
carried out behind the bullied person's back. It is harm someone's social reputation or cause
humiliation. While cyber bullying is bullying behaviours using digital technologies,
hardware such as computers and smartphones and software such as social media, instant
messaging, texts, websites and other online platforms.

Diagram 1 shows types of bullying that occur in school.

Bullying is a complex issue. It is important to recognize the sign in order to prevent bully
cases among school students. The victims of bully will show emotional, behavioural and
physical signs. For example, changes in sleep patterns, frequent tears and anger, becomes
more aggressive and unreasonable, unable to speak up in class and appears insecure. So
parents and teacher should notice children’s behaviour to protect them from becoming victim
of bully.
In November 2018, a Childrean4Change survey was conducted by the Kindness Project with
collaboration of the Ministry of Education and UNICEF. According to the survey it is found
that 8 out of 10 Malaysian children have encountered bullying in their respective
schools. 64% of the 2,000 children below the age of 18 surveyed confided that they have
participated or possibly participated in acts of bullying. From the survey also, it is found out
that 70% of children had witnessed a peer being bullied, 50% identified the classroom as
being a venue where bullying usually occur, 27% of respondents were victims of humiliating
name-calling and 16% were victims of hurtful rumours that made them be ostracized.

Not only in Malaysia, other country children also facing the same problem. For example, in
the US alone, close to 30% of the population have been subjected to bullied, while 13% of
the student in grades 5 to 10 have bulled others. On the other hand, at least 20% of the
American teens have harassed or physicality harmed their classmates while over 20% of the
American teens have agreed to have ostracized their classmates. However, in spite of the high
statistics, bullying is more common among boys than amongst girls.

Lifetime Bullying Victimization Rates

Diagram 2 shows increases of lifetime bullying victims from 2007 to 2016.

According to the bar chart, it is shown that the percentage of bullying is increases with time.
But the problem with bullying in Malaysia is that nobody speaks up when it happens and
nobody take it as a serious problem. The victims are too embarrassed to speak out and even
family members and teachers think it is just part of growing up. But they didn’t realise that
bullying can give big impact on both children and community. So R.AGE organised
#STANDTOGETHER campaign to raise awareness about bullying among Malaysian
especially among students and parents. This campaign was launched April 2018 in
collaboration with the Ministry of Education (KPM), Digi, UNICEF. #StandTogether, a
nationwide campaign aims to end bullying through promoting kindness in school. This is a
campaign to promote very simple values to all such as kindness, empathy and unity. The
hope-fueled campaign received overwhelming support from NGOs and organisations like
Teach for Malaysia and celebrity campaign ambassadors Jinnyboy, Lisa Surihani, Arwind
Kumar, John Oommen, Dayang Nurfaizah, and Jenn Chia, all of whom pledged to support
the campaign.

Diagram 3 shows R.AGE launched #STANDTOGETHER campaign

Diagram 4 shows representatives of SP Setia and Star Media Group launched the campaign
with a video on bullying, alongside Tengku Zatasha.
There are several other reasons for this program is organized throughout the country and the
nation. Among the main reasons is that through a study found that 150 million students have
been reporting about the bullying that happens inside and outside the school. More than one-
third of students have been victims of bullying. This is evidenced by several cases of bullying
that happens in Malaysia. As KMLs, on March 25, 2019, a 16-year-old student who was
beaten up by three students aged from 16 to 18 years for refusing an offer to enter their
group. This causes the victim is seriously injured.

Diagram 5 shows news of 3 JB students beat up schoolmate.

In addition, examples of the most serious cases of bullying and popular in Malaysia is
bullying T.Nahveen. On June 9, a 18-year-old T. Nhaveen allegedly tortured by a group of
young people up to the level of brain death and this event has taken place in
Georgetown. Four teenage boys involved in bullying has been charged under Section 302 of
the Penal Code, which carries a mandatory death sentence.

Diagram 6 shows picture of assault victim T.Nhaveen dies in hospital.

Next, there is in some countries, school-aged children are not protected by state laws. They
are not defined by the Children Act 2001 and the Convention of Child Rights as Malaysia.
Child Rights are fundamental freedoms and the inherent rights of all human beings below the
age of 18. These rights apply to every child, irrespective of the child's parent's / legal
guardian's race, colour, sex, creed or other status. Among the countries that did not sign the
agreement 'Rights of the Child in 2017' are Somalia and the United states. In Sub-Saharan
Africa, South Asia and in Latin America, it is found out that there are children working
against to the Children Act. In Malaysia also there are children forced to work without pay in
an oil palm plantation at Kampung Tasek, Perak.

Diagram 7 shows the news of a group a children forced to work at Perak.

There are 158 million students aged from 6 to 17 years old felt that school is not a safer place
especially classroom. This is due to the classroom is one where most bully cases took
place. Bullying described herein not only physically but also mentally and
emotionally. Examples of mental bullying is a form two female students had been bullied by
a classmate by giving a negative image. This leads to loss of self-confidence and the student
face difficulties in their daily life.

In addition, examples of physical bullying happens in the classroom is February 14, a video
duration of one minute 26 seconds start-of-mouth on Facebook, shows a boy being beaten by
three boys which is believed captured by another student. After the incident, the victim of
bullying and bullies have attended counseling sessions for positive development. At 39
countries in Europe and North America, 17 million students admitted that they are being
bullied by classmates at school. The above incident is one of the reason
#STANDTOGETHER campaign is organized throughout the country. They are trying to
reduce the problem of bullying in schools and to build young people who adhere to the values
of love and respect.

Diagram 8 shows the viral video.

#STANDTOGETHER Campaign has organized a number of programs such as competitions,

seminars and public talk to achieve the goal of this campaign. First of all, in Kota Kinabalu, a
run named UNICEF Borneo Marathon was held. A total of 10,000 people took part in
UNICEF's Borneo Marathon. UNICEF also participated in the run. The message conveyed
through this run are children and adults need to work together to address the problem of
bullying is widespread in schools.

Diagram 9 shows a participate proudly shows his medal after complete his run in UNICEF's
Borneo Marathon.

Second, #STANDTOGETHER has organized several competitions in schools. The

competition encourages students to share their ideas on how to make school safer place.
Every school stand to win up to RM20,000 in grants to carry out their kindness for National
Kindness Week. This competition mainly focus on primary and secondary schools only. But
both international schools and local schools are welcome to take part in this competition.
They also giving away kindest people award to selected student, teacher and principals in
schools around Malaysia. This #StandTogether National Kindness Week program has kicked
off in hundreds of schools nationwide with students doing their part to create a kinder
Malaysia. For example, In Penang, SMK Convent Green Lane launched an artificial
intelligence (AI) chat bot that allows students to share their problems safely and
anonymously. Through this AI chat bot, the teacher found out that Convent Green Lane
students are very kind to other people, but they’re not so kind to themselves. This is because
some of them are lonely and depressed. So they decided to carry out a program to undergoes
this problem.

Diagram 10 shows students and teachers from SJK(C) Shang Wu, seen here with Arwind
celebrating the start of the National Kindness Week.

Diagram 11 shows bar chart that proved most bullying occur in school.
Third, the program “#ENDViolence Youth Talk” organized by UNICEF Malaysia in Kuala
Lumpur on August 8, 2018. UNICEF Malaysia has collaborated with Digi
Telecommunications Sdn.Bhd to ensure the success of this program. The main purpose of
this program is to give awareness about bullying and cyber-bullying in schools that can bring
a negative impact on both students and the community. A global survey issued by UNICEF
on World Children’s Day 2017 revealed that almost 7 out of 10 children in Malaysia worry a
lot about bullying. Children in Malaysia also have serious concerns for other global issues,
such as violence against children (64%), and terrorism (60%). The same survey found that
95% of children in Malaysia believed that the world would be a better place for children if
their leaders would listen to the voice of children. So Malaysian undergraduates have
participated in the Youth Talk to discuss this serious issue and how to resolve them. The
#ENDViolence Youth Talk provides a safe platform for young people to say for themselves,
openly discuss and contribute to how they want to end violence. The voices will be
channelled to shape a global youth manifesto that will be presented to world leaders. As a
way to cope, Korean artist, Choi Siwon asked young people to share their opinions via the
internet using the #ENDViolence and #StandToLearn.

Diagram 12 shows presence of Nurul Izzah, Siwon and Lisa Surihani to #ENDViolence
Youth Talk.

Fourth, three helpline have been created to help children who are in danger situation such
abuse, accident and situations that related to children. Example of helpline are Befrienders,
Childline Malaysia and Talian Kasih 15999. Befrienders is a group of volunteers with the
help of psychology, they will listen their customer’s problem without any prejudice. While
Childline Malaysia is an emergency outreach service for children who are going through a
period of crisis such as dangerous situation. The purpose of this service is to protect children
under 18 years old. While Talian Kasih 15999 provides emergency services for abuse and
domestic violence. They provide help to single mothers, the poor and disabled children.
Counselling service is also available through this hotline.

In conclusion, bullying is a socially unacceptable behaviour caused by both social rejection

and various underlying drivers. The main risk factors include personality, psychosocial
factors such as social rejection, struggle for power, family risk factors such as painful
childhood experiences, and poor parenting. Despite all these risk factors, the effects of
bullying outweigh the benefits of bullying. However, it is important to understand that
bullying is a deviance that can be controlled and eliminated. It is also important to understand
that the statistics provided above may not be reliable because there are cases in which
bullying incidences are not reported or under reported. Children should be fully protected so
they can survive, grow, learn and develop to their fullest potential and we should protect our
next generation. Parents also need to play an important role in this case. A family is the first
line of protection for children. Parents are responsible for building a protective and loving
home environment. While schools and communities are responsible for building a safe and
child-friendly environment outside the child's home. . So as a Malaysian, we should give
support to this #STANDTOGETHER campaign which is conducted every year in order to
protect children from bullying.
References
1. https://www.worldofbuzz.com/study-8-out-of-10-malaysian-children-encountered-
bullying-in-school-everyday/
2. https://www.rage.com.my/standtogether-for-kindness/
3. https://www.jirehshope.com/posts/362
4. https://www.stopbullying.gov/at-risk/warning-signs/index.html
5. https://www.unicef.org/malaysia/campaigns_rage_against_bullying.html#.XKxIoVUz
bIU
6. https://www.ncab.org.au/bullying-advice/bullying-for-parents/definition-of-bullying/
7. https://www.unicef.org/malaysia/campaigns_endviolence.html
8. https://www.unicef.org/malaysia/ourwork.html
9. https://www.unicef.org/malaysia/media_news14-
children_are_not_commodities.html#.XKtoNlUzbIU