Dealing with a Bully

Posted by Olya Cherevko, Youth Impact Manager

Oksana is a girl that I work with at the Poltytechnic College (PTL). She mentioned a few times that she gets bullied by her classmates. She is the only girl in her class. As a result, the boys often pick on her. They have pulled her hair and even started fights with her. She is strong and usually fights back, but was getting tired of it.

I talked to the director and asked him if he could move her into another group, but he said it wasn't possible since it's the end of the school year. Part of the problem is that when the boys do this during class, the teachers ignore the situation and don't deal with it. Since it continued to be a problem, Oksana and I decided to speak with the boy that was causing the most trouble. This is a boy that I have a relationship with because he came from one of our groups at Saramoldaeva orphanage. I talked with him and he promised me that he would not pick on her anymore. I asked him to also talk to the other boys, since they often look to him as the leader of the class. He promised to talk to the other boys.

After a few days I asked Oksana how things were going. She said that he did talk to the boys that same day and told them that I asked them to stop picking on Oksana. Even though I don't have close relationships with them, most of them know who I am. Oksana said that the one boy has stopped picking on her and the others have decreased. It is exciting to be in a situation where Oksana can come to me, confide in me, and I have the relationships to be able to help her. Hopefully, in the future we can even spend time with the teachers helping them to know how to deal with these kinds of situations in their classrooms.