It’s been nearly two decades since the first Pink Shirt Day was held back in September 2007.
The day, marked this year on Feb. 25, was founded after Nova Scotia high school students David Shepherd and Travis Price organized a protest to support a Grade 9 student who had been bullied for wearing a pink shirt.
Since then, more than $3 million in net proceeds have been distributed to support youth anti-bullying programs throughout Canada, according to CKNW’s Kids’ Fund, the organization that runs Pink Shirt Day.
Trinity Shannon, Early Childhood Education student at Durham College (DC), said seeing everyone, including boys, dress up in pink was a huge thing for her.
“I was like ‘oh my goodness, yay, everyone’s dressing in my favourite colour,’” said Shannon.
She said she saw a dynamic shift in the school when Pink Shirt Day came along.
Ben Wilson, Computer Programming and Analysis student at DC, saw a similar shift at his school.
“There was a lot of bullying around my school when I was younger,” said Wilson. “After we kept doing [Pink Shirt Day] more and more, a lot of that bullying kind of died down.”
Wilson said he experienced more bullying than he witnessed.
“Most of the time, I was the one being bullied a lot,” he said.
According to the Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth, 71 per cent of young people ages 12 to 17 report experiencing bullying in the past year. The most common forms of bullying among youth are verbal (59 per cent), rumours (34 per cent) and exclusion (32 per cent).
Community Integration through Co-operative Education (CICE) student, Sara Gosling, was also bullied, which built her understanding of bullying before Pink Shirt Day was founded.
“I think we should always be raising awareness, always talk about it all year round, always just let people know about it,” she said.
Shannon and Wilson shared Gosling’s sentiment.
“It’s only addressed that one day and everyone becomes unison and they’re all happy together for about a week and then it wears off,” said Shannon.
She said schools should be addressing bullying all the time rather than just one day and it’s important to be together, understand each other and work together.
Wilson said “bullying happens more than just once a day, it happens weekly, monthly or even just yearly.”
Students attending DDSB schools can report bullying on DDSB’s Report Bullying Now Incident page.