Some San Antonio-area schools are participating in an anti-bullying campaign this week.
It’s five days of student programs with the David’s Legacy Foundation, which honors 16-year-old David Molak who took his life after being cyber-bullied.
The program is an anti-cyber-bullying effort aimed at middle and high school kids to teach them how to make better choices, how to stop one rude comment from turning into a bullying pattern, and how to say "I’m Sorry."
“And to say, ‘You know what? I said something that was out of place. I was having a bad day.’ Because sometimes, we do.”
Speaking to more than 500 students at Alamo Heights High School Monday morning, motivational youth speaker Gabe Salazar says he wanted the students to have an opportunity to take ownership of their actions and words.
“You know, there are levels of it: There’s being rude, there’s being mean and then there’s being a bully. And the reason we set up those different layers is that we want to give kids the room and the space to apologize and say, ‘What I did was so wrong.’ And that’s part of that healing experience that begins to teach that maturity and the responsibility of owning their words.”
Salazar expects to speak to 8,000 students this week in San Antonio and Seguin school districts.
There is also a family-prevention night scheduled at 6:30 this evening at Tri Point YMCA for kids and parents to share.
“I want students to know that there’s hope, that they should never stop believing in themselves,” Salazar said.
As a teenager, Salazar struggled to find his identity. Growing up in a single-parent home that often did not make ends meet, Gabe was transferred from one school to another. At each new school, he ‘reinvented’ himself to fit in with whatever was popular and trendy at that campus.
