Godwin students talk to their peers about bullying

Credit: Submitted photo

Godwin Middle School students Sabrina Auandee (left) and Meredith Oakes recently put together a presentation to talk to their peers about bullying.

By: Amanda Stewart | Inside NoVA
Published: December 25, 2011

DALE CITY, Va. --

Two Godwin Middle School students recently made it their mission to tackle a common problem: bullying.

Eighth-graders Meredith Oakes and Sabrina Auandee put together a presentation about bullying and presented it to their classmates, all the students at Godwin Middle School, over three days last month.

Meredith, 13, said she got the idea to speak to her classmates about bullying after listening to a song, “Welcome to My Life” by Simple Plan one day.

“Basically it just helped me to see how big of a problem bullying is,” she said. “It’s a big problem because people think it’s just name-calling and it’s not a big deal, but it is.”

In their presentation, Meredith and Sabrina used music and bullying statistics to convey their message.

The girls also included a message from Kevin Epling, the founder of Bully Police USA.

Meredith said she and Sabrina were surprised by the reaction other students at Godwin had to their presentation.

“Afterwards, kids were coming up to us in the hall, saying they like our presentation,” Meredith said. “Normally, we don’t talk a lot to sixth- or seventh-graders, but after the presentation, random students were coming up to us in the hall hugging us.”

Their presentation also got some attention from school administrators and school division employees who work on bullying prevention, who watched the presentation on the third day.

Meredith’s father, John Oakes, said he was impressed with his daughter’s work on the presentation, which she completed for a Silver Award in Girl Scouts.

“She is quite the young lady doing this on her own without any parental help,” he said.

Meredith said she and Sabrina hope their presentation made some kind of difference at Godwin, and they think it did.

“I think we opened up people’s eyes about how bullying affects people and what a big problem it is,” she said.

Staff writer Amanda Stewart can be reached at 703-530-3908.

Godwin students talk to their peers about bullying

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