This year’s Bateman Team hit the ground running with its balloon launch Tuesday on the North Lawn.
During February, the team members are promoting a bullying prevention campaign, which includes a plan to educate the Gainesville community about the definition of bullying and its long-term and short-term effects.
Tuesday, students painted their bodies with hurtful words in black paint and stood by 100 orange balloons, each of which represented 1,600 students — a total of 160,000 — in the U.S. that choose not to go to school each day because they fear being bullied.
The campaign was created by five public relations seniors from UF’s College of Journalism and Communications as part of the Public Relations Student Society of America’s national, annual Bateman Case Study Competition. UF’s team is working with the Gainesville-based River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding.
“We hope students are encouraged to talk about the instances they’ve experienced or the times they’ve seen others being bullied and use that as a way of them empowering others to share their stories, share their struggles and stand up together against bullying,” said Bateman Team member Karla Cobreiro.
Nikki Runion, 20, a UF family youth and community sciences sophomore, said she is helping the Bateman Team with its mentoring program because she has witnessed bullying in her life and likes to stand up for people.
The “Spot it, Stop it … Bullying Hurts Everyone!” campaign for bully prevention has been in the works since September.
“There are a lot of events we’ll be having throughout the month,” said Bateman Team member Claire Miller, 21. “We really hope that the Gainesville community takes advantage of everything we’re planning and have to offer.”
Members of UF’s Bateman Team strike their signature pose during the “Spot It, Stop It” anti-bullying campaign Tuesday afternoon on the Reitz Union North Lawn.
