Students at St Columbkille’s Primary and around the Diocese are standing up and saying “No Way!” to bullying to mark today's National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence.

Our local Catholic schools put great importance on creating a caring, supportive school culture that provides each student with a respectful, safe and secure learning environment.

Core to our mission in Catholic Education are the values of dignity, respect, justice and compassion. Bullying, cyber-bullying and harassment disregard those values, and adversely affect the wellbeing of students. This is unacceptable in our Catholic schools.

As WIN News Illawarra reported today, the CEDoW’s RISE Above Program exists to help address that problem. The program goes into our 38 primary and secondary schools across the Diocese of Wollongong and works directly with students to combat bullying and harassment, and promote building positive relationships.

RISE Above provides skills and awareness in areas critical to students’ wellbeing, including respect, resilience, teamwork, self-esteem, body image, cybersafety and using social media.

With Australian parents now more worried about their children using social media and technology than drugs, alcohol and smoking, CEDoW also runs a similar version of the program for parents and teachers, to help them gain insight into the issues children may be facing.

The RISE Above program has been delivered to over 30,000 students so far, with St Columbkille’s Catholic Primary School the latest school to take part.

The Corrimal students were keen to share the knowledge they’ve now been empowered with from the experience. 

LISTEN to Katarina, Michael and Felicity present what what they’ve learned:

CEDoW’s Youth Leadership and Development Officer, Josh Cotter, delivers the RISE Above program to schools throughout the Diocese.

In a world where social media use is only growing, bullying can seem increasingly inescapable. Mr Cotter said it was important students understand that they are not alone.

“We endeavour to help students and ensure they are equipped with the tools and knowledge to make informed decisions online and offline,” he said.

For more information, visit https://bullyingnoway.gov.au/.
If you need help, you can also visit the Kids Helpline website or call their free, confidential 24/7 phone counselling service for young people on 1800 55 1800.