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East High students imagine a world without bullying
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
East High School students Cher’Rea Sarbaro, Ta’Wanna Dowd and Jamesha Williams know what it’s like to be bullied, and they want to spare other students from enduring the same thing.
The girls are members of the school’s Destination Imagination team who have identified decreasing bullying as a community need. Their DI project, “Hand in Hand We Can Stamp Out Bullying,” aims to educate young people about the problem of bullying in an effort to stop it.
“Bullying is something that’s a real problem in schools now but also in our environment,” Ta’Wanna, a sophomore, said. “It’s everywhere.”
From noon to 2 p.m. March 1 at Spanish Evangelical Church, Keystone Avenue, team members invite students from the community to attend an anti-bullying event. Each of the team members will talk about their experience as a bullying victim and how they dealt with it. Participants will then be able to design their own T-shirts with an anti-bullying theme. There is no cost.
Team members conducted fundraisers to buy the T-shirts and supplies.
The Rev. Rolando Rojas and his wife, Ruth, the church’s associate pastor, offered the church for the event.
Jeanne Constantino, an East teacher and the DI coach, said fliers will be distributed in city and surrounding middle and high schools inviting students to the event. Students will be encouraged to wear the T-shirts they design on a designated day next month and spread the anti-bullying message throughout their schools all year.
Ta’Wanna hopes it creates a new trend. Rather than bullying being widespread, anti-bullying efforts will become the norm.
She’s been called names, and it made her mad. She learned to tell an adult and not to react.
Cher’Rea, a junior, had a similar experience.
“I was called names constantly and made fun of,” she said.
Her uncle told her not to let it bother her. He said, “People have mouths, they’re supposed to talk.”
That helped, and she just ignored it.
Jamesha, an eighth-grader, said sometimes being bullied made her want to fight. But she learned that’s not the solution. It doesn’t solve anything, she said.
“I don’t let it bother me,” she said.
Ta’Wanna said you may think fighting the person who is bullying you will make you feel better, but it doesn’t, and it doesn’t stop the bullying either.
Other DI team members are seniors Charde’ Woods, Michelle Morgan, Cephren Copeland and Claudia Pagan.
Team members will show evidence of their outreach project at the Destination Imagination event March 15 at Youngstown State University.
The intent of the challenge is to address a community need, and team members must deliver a presentation at the tournament explaining how their project spoke to that need.