Politicians would have us believe Britain is full of hoody-clad youths terrorising society, but do teenagers deserve such a bad press?
"Of course young people want to make a positive difference. It's us who are going to grow up and live in the world next, so we want everything to be good." - Antonia Bomba
THERE is one, quite selfish, school of thought about bullying - it only concerns those being bullied, the bully, and possibly a teacher who has to deal with the issue.
Thankfully, Jennifer Boyle and Antonia Bomba don't think like that. They believe that pupil power helps beat the bullies.
The two teenagers are involved in Bearsden Academy's Friends Against Bullying (FAB) campaign, which has run at the school for six years.
"If you go to a teacher it's very formal and you think 'who are they going to speak to, what are they going to say?'" Jennifer explains. "But we're all the same age more or less, and have been through all the things that they've [the victim] been through. And we can talk to them on their level." The FAB programme is run by sixth-year students with training and support for all the volunteers provided by Childline. Going through the school as a pupil, Jennifer heard first hand from her friends how important this scheme was.
"For the first year pupils, it was really good to have the sixth years there for them, " she says. "It was good to know that if you needed them, they were there. And a few people did go to them." When Antonia and Jennifer started at FAB this year, there was a bit of a stigma attached to it. "Some people didn't want others to know they were going to it, " explains Antonia.
They decided to change that.
"When we started it, we wanted FAB to be more of a group of sixth years who were there to be your friend, even if you were just lonely, " says Antonia. "We made it a social thing, as opposed to an official 'are you being bullied' kind of thing." Antonia believes that projects such as FAB should help convince more adults that young people can be part of the solution to some of the problems widely blamed on her generation.
"I don't think the newspapers and politicians recognise the broad spectrum of young people that there is, " she says. "It's a small minority who give young people a bad reputation and they don't recognise those who are achieving, going places. or even doing things like FAB."
