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By Courtney Almeida

Pink Shirt Day 2019 hits the Swan City

Feb 27, 2019 | 4:30 AM

Today marks the annual Pink Shirt Day celebration, a campaign focused on raising awareness for bullying that originated in Nova Scotia. Participants are encouraged to wear the colour pink to show their support towards anti-bullying.  

Many schools in the Swan City are getting in on the action. Each is celebrating in its own way but one school has taken the initiative further than just wearing pink.

Grande Prairie Composite High School is celebrating Pink Shirt Day by organizing several activities. In addition to wearing pink and posting to social media using #YouAreNotAlone the schools’ Student Council has come up with several ways for students to get involved.

A chain link has been organized, asking for students to add a pink link to a longer chain, representing their stance in solidarity with the cause.

Each year the campaign takes on a different theme and this year’s theme is “Standing Together”.  

Pink notes have also been set up, where students will post positive messages on sticky notes all around the school.

“These are ideas that our students have come up with,” said Comp. Principal, Dennis Vobeyda

“Our student council takes a lead in terms of getting involved and we want the ideas to come from the students. Of course, there’s the pink shirts and that’s the general one but then we went back to our student council and asked them, what are the other things that you would like to see for this day, and these are the ideas that they came up with so we’re very proud of our students for that.”

Additionally, “Pink Your Hair” has been arranged. Students will be able to dye their hair pink and school staff are getting involved in the fun too.

“It’s a staff-wide initiative, it’s not just the students,” says Vobeyda. “I think it’s important for adults that we model that as well, so I’m sure that we will have many of our staff if not all, wearing pink shirts and I’m sure by the end of the day there will be a lot of pink hair as well.”

The idea for Pink Shirt Day originated in 2007 when two Grade 9 students from Nova Scotia took a stand against homophobic bullying towards a classmate. After witnessing a student get harassed for wearing a pink shirt on the first day of school, they organized an overnight action plan which winded up seeing hundreds of students from their school show up wearing pink the next day.

Since then, Pink Shirt Day has grown into an international campaign celebrated around the world.

Advocates say bullying is a critical issue in schools, workplaces, homes and online. The hope is for as many people to get involved as possible, not just students.

Throughout the Alberta school system, positive messages will be encouraged on social media but anyone can get involved by using #YouAreNotAlone .

“It’s not just one school or one community but the entire province and across Canada.”

The City of Grande Prairie sold shirts all month long in support, with proceeds going towards other anti-bullying initiatives within the Peace Country. 

 

by Courtney Almeida