Alexander Henderson <anticyberbully>
"You Are Not Alone"
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 | Recent updates! | 172 dagen geleden | ||
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| Hi everyone! Just a written blog to keep you all up to date on my recent activites in regards to the campaign! ... Not entirely surely were to start to be completely honest, so much has happend! I suppose it's best to start with the biggest thing I'm working on, currently, with a team of Volunteers, I am organising a charity event to raise money for Childline and raise awareness for the Campaign! The event being organised is a Skydive, hopefully, in Peterlee! I'm trying to make this a national stunt and have national press there to observe the jump that will be made by, hopefully; if all goes well, 100 + people will be taking part! Although certain things need to be organised and the event needs to be booked - this event should go down in August! With the aid of local and national buissness, I am hoping that the Skydive will be free of charge to the participants. IF YOU WANT TO TAKE PART IN THE CHILDLINE SKYDIVE - EMAIL ME AT anticyberbullying@yahoo.co.uk More recently, I have been interviewd and, another article has been published in the Tees Valley Evening Gazette about the campaing; the article can be found at: http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/te... I have been asked, and have happily accepted an opportunity to take part in a Cyberbullying conference that will be held in London in early September to talk about my campaign and what I wish to achieve with my goals. More to come about that! Last, but by no means least, The Adrenaline Project theatre production, Project Y.A.N.A, is about to go live this month to an audience of invited guests at Stockton Sixth Form College, to watch and provide feedback for the group to take on board and make ammendments - where and if nessecary. After that, the show will be put on for groups of secondary school pupils at the Arc in Stockton-On-Tees and is presently a sellout show, put on free of charge by the theatre company. More updates on how this show goes down and the effect it has on it's audiences! Thanks for reading, I do hope this is an informative blog as to everything I'm doing at the moment! Kindest Regards, Al Henderson | ||||
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| Well, Thanks a Bundle! | 232 dagen geleden | ||
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| Hello everybody! I just want to say Thank you, not only to the people who follow and support the campaign, but, mainly to the people behind the scenes at Battlefront. Without the commitment, passion and enthusiasm of everyone of the Battlefront team, this campaign wouldn't be were it is today; and I owe everything to everyone at Battlefront. So thank you very much, this campaign is bigger than I could've ever anticipated, or even dreamt about. It's becoming more successful, more and more people are hearing and know of this campaign and hopefully, when the goals start to be achieved, lives are going to be changed. So this is only a quick blog, but from me, Thanks everyone. Kindest Regards, Al Henderson | ||||
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| Easter Easter Easter.... Were is that Bunny?! | 232 dagen geleden | ||
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| Happy Easter everybody! What an Easter it is, it'll be my last easter at home and my parents, even after 7 years of requests (yes, i'm counting!) STILL havn't bought me a Galaxy Easter Egg....ohwell, always next year I suppose. 8th time a charm... apparently? Anyway! Campaign news! I've recently had my head everywere about the goals I've wanted to achieve with this campaign and decided, to have a sit down with myself and refine my aims and ambitions. So, after much thinking and lots of coffee, my goals are as follows; - Nationalise the peer-to-peer mentoring scheme throughout all schools in the U.K., peer-to-peer mentoring is a successful way to have people our age talk about our problems! It's a great way for people who know whats going on, to provide support and help - but only a few schools have this system in place. Cybermentors has recently been launched by Beatbullying, which is similar to this, but based on the Internet - having it in schools will cover all ground! - Have controls and legislation implemented to reduce the prevelance of Cyberbullying - Have firm clauses implemented to deal with serious cases of Cyberbullying - Produce the theatre production for schools to be presented at the Arc, a date has been set, the stage is being laid and the actors are getting ready - In June, we will provide a show for 1000 pupils from different schools within the Tees Valley area, if it's a big success, maybe more? - Make the campaign Trans-Atlantic, this is because most Networking and IM companies have their servers based in the US, any changes in law and legislation in this country wont impact the servers in the US. So... How close am I to fulfilling these goals? Well the theatre production is ALMOST finished, just sticking scenes together and getting people off script! Which is great progress! After meeting a lot of useful contacts at the recent Battlefront Event in London, I'm hoping to work closely with the government to achieve the other goals! So, progress is great! On a local level, I'm currently awaiting the £2500 pounds worth of funding to come through into the account so I can start to mass-produce leaflets/flyers/posters on Cyberbullying to distribute throughout the local area and pass onto other Y.A.T teams to distribute in their areas - maybe YOU will be seeing a flyer soon in your area!! So times are great, exam revision is brilliant, the campaign is making leaps and bounds in terms of progress. ... Bring on the future? Kindest Regards Al Henderson | ||||
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| What a great battlefront event! | 233 dagen geleden | ||
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| Hi everyone! I recently had the opportunity to attend a Battlefront event in London, during the course of the event, select campaigners spoke about their campaigns to an audience of school pupils from local schools and also some important people who the campaigners may wish to network with! We got a very valuable talk about how to network successfully and to establish many contact from a networking guru. The people there who wanted to know about our campaigns and ideas were from a range of diverse backgrounds, from Government, represented by none other than Ed Balls, through to Esther Rantzen and everyone in-between! It was a great great day and I'm extremely appreciative to have had the opportunity to meet and network with so many passionate and useful people! Have a great day! Al Henderson | ||||
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| Theatre... Theatre... Theatre.... Did somebody mention Theatre?! | 264 dagen geleden | ||
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| Hi everyone! I havnt really given a progress update in terms of my theatre company... So I decided that I should overwhelm you all with the details! We have got all the script blocked on paper - which is such a relife! It's really cool because it brings together many different types of drama so hopefully, fingers crossed, it'll appeal to everyone in the audience and people will be hooked! We have fully blocked the first part of the script and the second part is well on it's way to completion - which is another great stage we are at! Hopefully, within a couple of months, everyone will be firmly off script and we'll be running this through! Although... we have gotten stuck at a certain slap scene - currently deciding as to whether or not to have a real slap.... Mhmmm... after 20 minutes of rehearsing - the actress who was getting slapped had a bright red face... needless to say - she perservered and carried out! We have our dress rehearsal performance organised and have booked a theatre for a two day presentation of the play to all the schools within the area; we are hoping that by getting the Local Education Authority onboard (which we are in the process of doing) all schools will come and attend - which gives us a huuuuuge audience to look forward too! Our own kit! Hopefully; after we do this theatre performance of the play - we'll buy our own kit with some of the proceeds and as a company, take this play to the streets and perform it to passing audiences in major towns around the country - hitting everyone of all age ranges! Will be really perfect if things go to plan! I'll drop some video updates shortly of the gang doing their stuff and one about progress! Thanks for reading!!! Al | ||||
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| Volunteers Celebrate... So do I! | 265 dagen geleden | ||
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| Hi guys!! On Thursday ( a day after my Southamptoin Medical Interview! ) I attended a Volunteering vInvolved celebration evening at Teesside University! The evening was energetic and vibrant with everyone excited about what the future held for different volunteering campaigns. As part of the evening, there was a comedy Hypnotist, two local bands playing music, vast amounts of food that catered for the 160 people that attended, and to finalise the evening - Five volunteers were in the spotlight talking about their experiances! I got the honor to kick start the spotlight volunteers; as part of this I stood up on stage and did a talk on the campaign, it's goals and how I wanted to use volunteers to take part in different aspects of the campaign!! The uptake of my campaign concept was great! People were going crazy and loads of people got my e-mail; not heard from any yet though! Why am I celebrating?? Well! Ontop of using this really great opportunity to put the campaign out there; I've also recently heard that my Vcashpoint funding application was accepted and I've managed to gain £2500 (near enough!) So... now that we have money in the bank; we can really start to push the campaign locally!! Well, I'll give you some more updates soon!!!! See you later!!!! Al | ||||
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| Y.A.T Attack!! | 275 dagen geleden | ||
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| Hi folks!! This saturday, just gone, I was in London!! Brilliant stuff! I took down about 150 of the flyers that United Dance donated to the campaign for promotional purposes and decided that it was best to start giving them to everyone -- at least once or twice over (and for some unlucky person, three times) to ensure they know what website to go to and how to support the campaign!! There must've been approximately 130 people there, and I made sure EVERYONE had a flyer by the end of the day... So.. How did I do it? Well - I approached people during their lunch and 'tea' breaks... decided to steal their time and make them as pumped up and as passionate as I am about the campaign - which worked quite well I'd like to believe... Everyone became really interested and even asked questions (which is a good sign!) I'm currently just waiting for people to get back to me, but gradually, I believe people will contact myself and I'll be able to use these Y.A.T teams to really run some large scale events that will be awesome for campaign publicity and raising awareness, alongside one of the main campaign aims which is to have a peer-to-peer mentor attached to every secondary school in the country! Woop Woop! Al Henderson | ||||
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| United Dance supports my Campaign! | 295 dagen geleden | ||
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| Hey folks! What else can I say?! I am so happy right now!! United Dance is supporting my campaign against Cyberbullying, and to show this support, they've printed off a LOT of flyers to be distributed around Bristol in a dance competition that could have astronomical crowds there! The flyer is in my pictures (Sorry I couldn't post it in this blog!) Hopefully, this'll draw a huge amount of attention and awareness towards my campaign, even better still that it's my target age group attending the dance competition in Bristol!! If you want to get more information on United Dance, go to, www.uniteddance.co.uk Cheerio! Al Henderson | ||||
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| True Stories | 318 dagen geleden | ||
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| Howdy, Howdy, Howdy! I want to firstly thank everyone who has messaged me over Bebo and via E-Mail and have offered their stories to me about their experiences with Cyberbullying, how they dealt with it, and how it affected their lives. It will help the campaign no end that you are so able to offer this insight. I'm really over the moon that people have happily came forward and submitted their stories and knowledge about this form of Bullying to be used to push the campaign; to make people empathise and understand how Cyber Bullying has an effect on people. BUT..Please do not stop sending!! Please please please, the more the better, make sure they are anonymous and that any individual unique details that could pin point you are removed. The stories may be posted in future as part of another written blog, so people may be reading your story - so bear that in mind before you submit the story too me. I wanted to share with you all a couple of stories that have been sent in to me. I think you will agree they are not nice to read. But it happens and we have to acknowledge it. Thank you to those people again for sending in your very personal stories: Story A I went through an experience earlier this year with a girl that thought it would be good to send me threatening texts. I started receiving threatening text messages every night, it started of were she would just call me nasty things. Straight away I told one of my teachers, and she really helped me. It got to the point were I got so annoyed and upset about it as I didn’t even know this girl she had just met me once and then I text them back asking why she was doing it. Things started getting worse and the texts started to get really threatening and it started to scare me. One night this boy I knew rang me and told me to meet him because he needed to talk to me when I got there he wasn’t there this girl was, she punched me really hard in my hips and they were badly bruised. I hid it all from my family and I never told them I asked my teacher not to tell any other teacher either. A few days later I told my friend and showed her what this girl had done and showed her the texts she told the teacher that I had told about the texts because I was scared to tell her, when she found out she had to tell another teacher and he rang my mum. I had been on holiday when it was going on as well and I was receiving them on my holiday it just made my life so horrible. Once my mum had found out she stopped me from doing a lot of things she didn’t want me to go some places on my own or with a friend in case this girl was there. The girl kept sending me texts telling me to meet her or things will get worse I was really scared but I didn’t want to show I was so I met her and she punched and kicked me, my stomach and sides and legs were all bruised. She made me meet her about 4 times and she done the same all 4 times, I couldn’t not go because she threatened worse things if I didn’t go. My family and teacher thought enough was enough and took me to the police station and we reported it and after I let it go on for months as soon as I reported it the texts stopped and I have never had another text from her. I just wish I went to the police and told them earlier because most of it would have been stopped. I really hated my life and I got really depressed I completely stopped eating and being happy I was not very fun to be around. If I didn’t tell my teacher it would probably still be going on now. I got at least 80 texts and I still have them all. My teacher helped me so much and put a stop to it so it’s best to tell someone soon I learned. Story B I've been a victim of bullying from Year 7 onwards through to Year 12. Year 7, I was targeted by a girl in my year who got one of her 6th form friends to beat me up. Year 8, My class spread disgusting untrue rumours that made the most unpopular girl in my year. I couldn't pass a day without someone quoting the rumour or calling me a name. Year 9, The little friends I have leave me deliberately and team up with a group of new people and target me. It was this group of ex friends and new people who would continue to target me from then on. Year 10, I make a small group of friends, but the group of bullies come and manipulate them and turn them against me. Rumours fly around about me being a lesbian and a slut, and I'm afraid to walk through the corridors on my own. Then they start making comments about my looks and weight, resulting in me going anorexic for the majority of the year (thankfully I recovered from the anorexia in the summer). Year 11, The bullying peaked when a Hate page was made right here on Bebo. I was humiliated in school constantly, pencil cases, drinks and food were thrown at my head. Someone once turned the school fire hose on me, and they sung cruel songs and spat at me. After Year 12, most of them left school so I tried to settle down having passed all my GCSEs with high grades, but I ended up enduring abuse from the year below me, particularly girls who continued to spit at me, shout abuse at me in the corridor and spread the rumour that I was pregnant. I left after Year 12 and never looked back, with three successful AS levels. I am now attending a college, and its only been a few months, but I am happier than I have ever been in my school life. I've made so many new friends, gained new confidence, and I'm happy with a loyal boyfriend. If you want to share your own experience with me please contact me - your stories are fundamental to this campaign. Your details will remain confidential. Thank you Al | ||||
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| vInvolved gets involved! | 319 dagen geleden | ||
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| Howdy howdy howdy! Just taking some time out of my busy time schedule to give you all some updates about where the campaign is moving and what it's final destination is starting to look like! Where to begin... I think it's important that I start with one of the huge parts of the campaign; which is my 'Cyberbullying Team'. As part of working in the community and reaching teenagers who may have suffered from Cyber bullying; i've teamed up with vInvolved, which is a Voluntary agency. The Recar, Stockton and Middlesbrough Youth Action Team are all working with me to push this campaign and to make it as brilliant, fun, and useful as possible. The team has grown to over 10 people!!! all with different skills and talents that can be used in different parts of the campaign, whether its design of ideas that are really cool and catchy for people to use and take part in, all the way through to people who can make sure that my campaign wont run out of money!!! (I hate numbers.) As part of working with this Youth Action Team, a Y.A.T (Youth Action Team) plan has been created with loads of different aims of the campaign alongside our team members and their skills. Some of the aims are below! -- Creating a community art project to display pieces of art work, both digital and non-digital in art galleries around the local area. Now we've started to get this really great team, we are going to all put our efforts into making this brilliant! Once my exams are done, I'll put my all into making this great!! -- Funding will buy DVD's/Leaflets/Posters that can be distributed throughout the area in all local community points, such as school and youth centres. In order to raise awarness about both the campaign and Cyberbullying, along with it's effects and stuff like that -- Formulating a Cyberbullying Awarness day that all youth points take part in, to raise awareness about Cyberbullying to teach about how to stay safe on the net!! So you wont become a victim to this! So it's all moving forward! Great Great stuff! | ||||
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