MEDIA RELEASE 11/11/13

Mid Canterbury now has a new tool to help in the battle against bullying.

Safer Ashburton District’s Think First project launched its long-awaited interactive website on Monday and released its first batch of anti-bullying video clips. Project coordinator John Hobbs said so far the response had been really encouraging.

‘’I think it’s great the community has gotten behind what we are doing and supported us. All of the different things we’re working on are to try and create a cultural shift within Mid Canterbury to raise awareness that bullying is not acceptable. It is a huge problem in this area and making excuses like ‘’it’s just kids being kids’’ isn’t going to change that.’’

The website, designed by NoBull, features a section for people to share their stories and connects both victims and perpetrators of bullying with locally accessible support channels. Mr Hobbs said the website brought everything together in one place. Utilising technology made the resources more easy to use while maintaining appeal with younger audiences. It also catered to a variety of different learning styles to cover how people retained information, such as by reading something or watching something.

The videos were filmed and edited by local company Zoom Visual Productions and were cast with young actors from Ashburton’s The Big Little Theatre Company.

‘’Every aspect of Think First has been kept local and I think that’s really important. It’s a project specifically for Mid Canterbury so to be able to involve the community shows how ready this district is for change,’’ Mr Hobbs said.

‘’Each step has been closely developed with a youth executive board made up of young people from all over the district. It’s really exciting for everyone involved with Think First to be able to show the public what we’ve been working on.’’

The website and videos can be viewed at www.thinkfirst.org.nz and you can follow Think First on Facebook to keep up to date www.facebook.com/thinkfirstNZ

ENDS

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