This story was originally published on the YES Program website by Merima, a YES alumna from Bosnia and Herzegovina who spent an exchange year in North Carolina.
My name is Merima and I am from Zivinice, Bosnia and Herzegovina. I was an exchange student in 2015-2016 in Apex, North Carolina, where I attended the local high school. While in the US, I was inspired by how much my high school worked on bringing everyone together, as well as by how my own counselor actively held meetings with students to make sure they felt welcomed and safe at school. After I came back to Bosnia and Herzegovina from the US, I started working on projects and eventually became a volunteer city representative for YES alumni. City representatives collaborate with other alumni of the YES Program to strengthen their communities through service projects.
Then, a bullying incident happened in my Bosnian high school. It showed me how much of a problem bullying is and that it's happening right in front of my eyes. I decided it was time to plan an anti-bullying workshop. At first, I wanted it to be pretty basic: a workshop for ten people. I then decided that there was no point in doing something if it's not going to make noise, so I reached out to Pavle, another city representative, to get help on this project.
Twenty high school students of all backgrounds participated in the workshop, which took place on February 2, 2017. We created a safe space for everyone to speak and made it a conversational workshop, rather than having us do all of the talking. The workshop presented information and evidence about how bullying has been taking schools by storm and highlighted the fact that our society isn't doing a whole lot to promote anti-bullying and diversity policies.
During the presentation, I played a video that was based on a real-life event, where an innocent life was lost due to constant bullying at school. It was obvious how much it affected every single person in the room; whether they were victims of bullying or bullies themselves.
I wanted to expand the reach of this project, so I made flyers with data on how many children are bullied both in Bosnia and Herzegovina and around the world and how little is being done to combat the problem. The participants of the workshop helped pass out these flyers and purple balloons (connecting the color purple to the purple ribbon for anti-bullying) to people on the streets.
When I started planning this project, I hoped to reach out to at least 10 people and help at least one victim of bullying. I certainly didn't expect that our story would reach the local TV station and other high schools. I was happily surprised when other students started stopping me in the hallways to ask me when they could attend an anti-bullying workshop. I already have two more workshops planned at other high schools, and I am working with Davor, the alumni coordinator for Bosnia and Herzegovina, on a proposal for making a short movie about bullying and the workshop that started it all.
About the YES Program
Congress established the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program in October 2002 in response to the events of September 11, 2001. The program is funded through the US Department of State and sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) to provide scholarships for high school students from countries with significant Muslim populations to spend up to one academic year in the United States.
Students live with American host families, attend high school, engage in activities to learn about US society and values, acquire leadership skills, and help educate Americans about their countries and cultures.