Canadian Anti Bullying Video Goes Viral

Wednesday, February 27th, is anti-bullying day in Canada, better known as pink shirt day. 

Before reading any other posts on the issue of bullying,  I strongly encourage ALL of you to watch the following video.

Shane Koyczan, a well known Canadian spoken word poet was bullied a lot when he was a child.  

Recently, he took that pain, wrote a powerful poem, narrated it, and worked with animators and motion artists from around the world to create the  “To This Day Project”. 

Since  it was uploaded on You Tube days ago, the To this Day Project video has received more than 4 million views, and the word is still spreading    

If you need to read the words while watching the video, click on the   the lyrics of To This Day. 

 "Facing the problem helps" 

In a post about his poem, Shane said, his experiences with violence in schools still echo throughout his life, but added that "standing to face the problem has helped me in immeasurable ways." 

Says Shane: "I wrote “To This Day”, a spoken word poem, to further explore the profound and lasting impact that bullying can have on an individual.

"Schools and families are in desperate need of proper tools to confront this problem. We can give them a starting point… A message that will have a far reaching and long lasting effect in confronting bullying." 

Extraordinary Effort 
 Shane stressed that the video was the result of of a group of individuals coming together and binding their talents in an expression of solidarity and compassion." 

"I am humbled by the extraordinary efforts of those who selflessly gave their time and committed themselves to bring out this message in such a beautiful way." 

In a interview in the  Huffington Post   Koyczan  said that to him, bullying started at the kindergarten age when he first thing children learned was to call each other names.

"Something so small can be so long lasting in someone's life, he stressed. 

In terms of what he hopes people take away from his video, Shane said, "Just that sense of connectivity. As much as you may feel alone in this, you're really not. There';s people who go through this every day. In a lot of ways, there's more of us than there of them." 

He added that people needed to be "more assertive" in how they dealt with bullying 

 We Need to Come Forward 
 We also need to get better at coming forward when we see it.  Now, it's our turn to make a difference in our communities. 

Koyczan has received a lot of positive responses including one emotional letter from a parent  who revealed that her 9-year old is bullied at school and has even contemplated suicide. 

" The great hope with this piece is that people will find that light or even find that piece within themselves to see their beauty to celebrate their differences, Shane said. 
"Because their differences ultimately are what make them beautiful." 

Find out how you can help the collaborative effort at ToThisDayProject.com.