The service learning project had the three of us traveling to three different Boys and Girls Clubs in order to experience the different varieties of programs that are offered against violence in the organizations. As stated in the previous post, Maria went to the Boys and Girls Club in Woburn, Mary Ellen went to Arlington and Kerrie went to Salem. The boys and girls club of Salem is located on Hawthorne Boulevard in downtown Salem. The establishment has been home to many Salem children, who attend the program for activities, after-school clubs and activities. The programs at the Boys and Girls Club of Salem offer a variety of clubs for teens that help them to become role model citizens and help to build self esteem and make good choices. One of the programs that I was interested in finding out about was The Teen Girl Group which allows teen girls to meet and address issues that they are facing in school and their lives. The program offers trips and sessions to help teens cope with the problems in their lives.
I had the honor of speaking with the Teen Director Andre Daley on the phone, who told me that the issue of Bullying is a topic that is frequently discussed in the Teen Girls Group. He encouraged me to come down and sit in on one of the sessions that the girls would be having and said that, "It is an eye opening experience to see just how prevalent bullying is in our society. It's disturbing just how many of the teens have experienced or participated in bullying first hand," I was able to stop by and witness a discussion on the topic of bullying which was brought up by Daley himself. The discussion was immensly profound, just to see that every single girl in that room had witnessed or been bullied themselves.
For more information on the Boys and Girls Club of Salem visit:
Kerrie's Reflection
I wasn't sure what to expect when I went down to the Boys and Girls Club to sit in at the Teen Girl Group, but what I found wasn't what I had expected. I thought that I would ask some of the girls some questions about if they had been bullied and if they would do anything to stop bullying. What I didn't expect was for the director of the Teen Group to accompany upstairs. He introduced me and I told the girls that I was from Salem State doing a project about Bullying for one of my classes. Daley then began asking the girls questions about whether they had been bullied or if they had ever bullied someone.
It was remarkable that the girls openly admitted to doing both. The girls who had been bullied mostly told stories about hurtful words from text messages, and one girl spoke of actually fighting another girl. Another girl openly admitted to writing slander words to a classmate over facebook, and said that she had been angry and regretted doing it ever since.
What I found to be very interesting was that the girls were very passionate about talking on the subject. They had a wealth of information about what their school was like and how bullying happened a lot.
I believe that sharing these stories were beneficial for the girls because they also discussed remorse for either participating or not doing anything to stop it. Talking about the issues could have also helped relieve the pain they could have felt when cyber bullying had become an issue in their lives.
I believe that talking about bullying and putting bullying programs into place is essential for students become educated on the topic of bullying. The more intervention there is and the earlier it starts, the less likely bullying is going to happen, according to Daley.
I would love to host a seminar at the Boys and Girls Club in the future discussing Bullying and Prevention of violence. I believe that these girls benefited from talking about it, and were interested in helping to stop it themselves. I would love to volunteer and help to make this a possibility in the future. My hopes is that they will remember what they had learned during that meeting and put it into action if they are ever faced with seeing bullying first hand.
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