Anonymous story 6

I started at high school on the 3 February 2011. I was a loner, I was by myself all the time and days, because I was a new person in the country and I didn’t know anyone at all.

Apart from the girls in my class, they were the only people that were nice to me because they knew where I came from and who I was. One week passed since I started at school and people started to bully me, make fun of me and tease me because of my skin colour. I couldn’t eat at all in school. So on that day I went home upset, didn’t want to talk to my mum or anyone, then my mother wondered why I was like this.

On the next morning, I slept in because I didn’t want to go to school, because I knew those people were gonna tease me again... so my mum decided that she was gonna call the school and make an appointment so that she can come in to talk to my counsellor. And she did but that didn’t sort the problem, I came home and started crying and I told her that I wanted to go back to my country, I can’t live here for the rest of my life if people are gonn keep doing this to me. And what she said was, you cannot go back, the reason why she bought me here, was for good and for me to find a good career. Then I said if you’re taking me back then why don’t you just move me out of that school and take me a different school, BUT she said if you’re going to run away and change school because of the bully, then the bully will always come after you and chase you and drag you down and it will never stop, then I ask her, what do you want me to do then, WHAT SHE SAID, WAS STAND UP FOR YOURSELF, FACE THEM!

I thought she was making a perfect point there, then I decided not to move, and I said to myself, oh this is what I’m going to do, I’m going to face them and stand up for myself. And it worked, I went to school on the next day, and those people that had bullied me, they got over it, they just couldn’t do it anymore.