EMPOWER_MeTime_13-17

7 “Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me”. In the past, we believed that while physical injury could have a lasting impact on a child’s emotions, confidence or sense of self-worth, verbal bullying (i.e. insults, name- calling and saying unpleasant things, etc.) would not. Today, we know that this is no longer true. While children are still threatened and victimized by the ‘sticks and stones’ style of physical bullying, these ‘names’ that they are called do indeed cause hurt and have a lasting impact on their emotional and mental well-being and development. Cyberbullying is a reality for many school children across the world and thus increasing the capacity and raising awareness in combatting bullying among primary school communities should be a must. How to combat bullying at home, school and the community and ways to support ourselves and the others in bullying contexts may be found in the Sticks’n’Stones project deliverables that may be accessed via the project’s website .