 Hey, everyone, and thank you for having me here. I'm really glad to be able to be here to support the cause like everyone else. And I'd like to begin by just introducing myself. I'm a recent graduate from George B. Vanie Secondary School. And from first-hand experience, I know exactly how tough the post-elementary world can be. I've reached a multitude of all-time highs and all-time lows in my lifetime in high school. And I know I'm not alone when I say that the secondary school is a wild, unpredictable, and occasionally grueling place. Towards the end of my career as a pre-college student, my life and my attitude towards life have shot up in an increasingly positive direction. I've met countless people. I've forged incredible friendships, pursued my passions with heart and optimism, and I've anticipated the next turns of my life could take wholeheartedly and eagerly. However, my life has not always been like this. For several years in high school, I was living in a hellish reality that I thought I would never escape. When I first entered high school, or in my case, it was middle school, I was in grade 7, I found out right away that it was a difficult world to adjust to everything from the classes, the schedules, the way people interacted, the people, and the responsibilities that school entailed were all brand-new entities to me. Taking everything in and making sense of it was really difficult. Those years ago, I was also quite introverted. I'd always been socially anxious, and I was still almost oblivious to the concept of standard high school social norms. Because of these, when I went to try my hand at connecting with people and making friends, things didn't go so smoothly. I often tried to hang out with different groups of people, but since I was awkward socially, most of these people didn't pay me much attention. On occasion, I'd be able to talk to someone in a somewhat friendly way. People were able to see that I was a kind person. But regardless of those attempts, no one ever reached out to contact me in school or outside of it other than the times I was brave enough to try. And that was if they acknowledged me at all. Because of my outside way of being, my chronic anxiety, of my lack of knowledge, of what it meant to be social, the vast majority of my first few years in high school I was alone, I couldn't find any niche that I could even remotely fit into. For two entire years, and a little bit more time on top of that, I spent my lunch hours on my own. Sometimes I'd go into the library and pretend to read, other times I would walk around aimlessly, and other times I would just sit in the hallway with my hood up and stare blankly at the ground, avoiding eye contact from the people passing by. I didn't do any of these things by choice. I did it because I simply couldn't find anything else to do, because nothing seemed to work. Unfortunately, these underdeveloped traits that I had also led to more than just exclusion. I was sometimes made fun of too. From grade seven through eight, I was the butt of jokes from a few people from across the halls and across the rooms of my school. Needless to say, the comments didn't settle with me very well. They made me even more anxious than I already was. As I moved from middle school to high school, I heard the continuing sting of exclusion and more snider marks peppered into my routine malaise. I often tried to keep my true emotions hidden from my peer crowds in high school, but that never diminished the fact that I was deteriorating inside every day. On some days, I will admit, I felt like things were getting better and I tried to be optimistic. But one day, when I was in ninth grade, one comment put my optimism to rest. A boy in a group that I was trying to hang around with, one that I was with often, told me, screw off Jay, no one wants you here anyway. What he said might have been true, it might not have. At the time he may have meant it or he may not have. But the connotation, mindfulness of the words and the true meaning of that statement didn't matter. Those words crippled me. From then on, all of my negativity snowballed into an overwhelming mass and I tumbled more deeply into the depths of despair than ever before. I felt like I couldn't change the way people looked at me. I felt like I couldn't adapt to the environments around me like I skipped out on an evolutionary loophole. I felt like I'd never be able to talk to people or connect with anyone my whole life, that I would never change, that I would never be the person that I dreamed of being. I felt like my efforts would never amount to anything like every move I made was in vain. Morning after morning after morning, I woke up feeling completely hollow and I had to stave out my days in a meaningless purgatory that I felt like I could never escape. Rational thought escaped me and no matter what I tried to do, I could not shut off my disparaging thoughts. Quite literally for what felt like an endless cycle of days. I wanted to die. It was hard. Well, now that I've provided a thorough optopsy of my mostly gruesome early life in high school, you're probably wondering where everything turned around. Being that my life now is almost at the polar opposite extreme than it was then when I first started high school. Changing things around was a process, but the gateway to my ascending road was first opened up when I opened up. One day I decided to talk to my parents about how school was making me feel. I told them that I was having thoughts of suicide and I detailed on every little thing that was bothering me, every insecurity that was eating me. The incredible thing was that once I stated all my problems out loud to someone that was hearing me out, I felt some of the stress become instantly alleviated. With that weight off my chest, I started to think rationally again. I realized that I didn't have so much to be worried about. I was overanalyzing everything that I did completely unrealistically. I found out I didn't have to try so hard to be the coolest kid around to fit in. I thought about everything I aspired to be, to be specific, my aspirations in a field of particular interest to me, music, probably had the most significant impact. And I also started to think about how I could reach my goals. I became optimistic also, and this was a crucial component of what turned me around. I began to recognize the strengths that I had. I was an extremely kind person. I could empathize with others easily. I was strong academically. I had a good sense of humor. I was becoming a great guitar player and a musician. I had a lot of things going for me. And through finding confidence in myself, my days started to become easier. Approaching people became much less difficult. As days and months and years went on, everything I had difficulty with became easier and easier to do. I turned from an outcast feeling incapable of interacting with people to someone who could reach out to anyone and be capable of sharing a good time or a good conversation with. I made great strides at the things I was passionate about. I'd become a better musician than I could have ever anticipated. I've made an expansive and multifaceted group of friends that extends from city to city, province to province, even nation to nation. I became a socially outgoing and loving person who was loved by other people that I interacted with. Essentially, I became my dream. And even with all the positivity that's enveloped my life in recent years, I still feel that in a way, high school is almost like a test that no one can truly pass. Because no matter what anyone's social status, what their interests are, what friends they have, high school will affect the way they think. There's nothing wrong with this, just to be sure. In fact, it's inevitable. But in that environment, it's very easy to let the high school realm make its way too much into your head. And it can greatly affect the way you think, for better or for worse. To try and maintain or improve their place in their social hierarchies, people will do surprising things. In fact, the boy I mentioned who made the stinging remark towards me is perfect evidence of this. The guy who said that nasty thing to me, who I actually got to know on good terms after the incident, was not what most people would qualify as a bully. In fact, he was an extremely kindhearted guy. The comment he made towards me was completely out of the ordinary for him. I'd never seen him insult anyone before or after me. He was nice and mostly reserved, much like me, in fact. He was battling with insecurities just like me. At that particular moment though, he just chose to cope with them differently than I did. I know for sure that there are many other people out there just like him and me in school and myriad more people still with different backstories and different situations, feeling the need to fight in every possible way to be accepted and to fit in. So to all the people whose school affects, and I'm not just talking about students, I like to extend my advice to everyone in high school. If you're in despair or if you're facing problems of any size, know that help is always available. Never be afraid to open up what you are feeling. Become conscious of how your actions affect the people around you. Parents, teachers and peers, show empathy and extend your support to your students, children or friends in need and encourage them to say what they feel when they seem down and out or even when they have a smaller problem. Listen to the voices of everyone with an open ear and an open mind. Take action in encouraging people to interact kindly with the world around them and keep derogatory thoughts at a minimum. Encourage them to tolerate and to try and try to appreciate things and people that don't appeal to them. Help them realize their strengths and help them find confidence in those strengths because self-empowerment is one of the most powerful tools in anyone's arsenal. It can fight bullying, insecurity and can just overall has like immensely positive benefits. Like it's easy to, I guess I know it, I know like for teens and for adults, it's easy to spend a lot of time and energy focusing on things we wish were different about ourselves. But if we focus on the aspects about ourselves that we like and have a forward-thinking attitude towards our weaker traits, we can alleviate a great deal of the stress that can make itself present in our everyday lives. If everyone could be encouraging and open their mind in some way, then we can make incredible strides toward creating a healthy community for high school students and for everyone. With a little contribution from everyone, we can make that first step. Thank you. I'm Buffy. I'm a little late and I'm very sorry for that. I blame traffic. So I'm here to give you a little recount of my experience with bullying, which is markedly similar to Jay's, but in a completely different way. I felt all the same insecurities as him and paid him myself and what I went through a lot of the time and it all started in high school because in elementary school, I had a friend, every kid in the class was my friend. I had no problems getting along with anyone. My family was great and I thought the same thing would happen going into high school. Started high school, everybody was excited, but I went into a high school where they'd just built a new one and it divided my class so I was the only person who went in for my school and I went in happening to be a racial minority, which didn't matter to me. I was just open to making friends with anyone, but at that time, people didn't like me where I was because I happened to be white. Now, I did my best to try and make friends and get along with everyone that I could, but there was fighting in my school. They had to call in the police on a regular basis. Kids would block off hallways and start fights with kids of different nationalities just for being there, for being a different one than they were. I wasn't allowed down the South hallway during the middle of the day because that wasn't for white kids at that time and that terrified me. I was four, 11 in grade eight and I didn't know what to do. I talked to my older sister but she felt the same things that I did and she tried to group together with her friends and be as safe as she could in an environment where we were told we were supposed to be safe. My parents saw this and saw how aggressively we were bullied at this time and decided they wanted to move us schools and we were all for this. So we decided to move schools and we moved districts and moved out to Langley and my sister and I were really excited. On our first day, we showed up and there were people in cheerleader outfits like in the movies and everybody was having a pep rally which I didn't know actually happened in schools. So it was pretty exciting and we went there and I went into my first class. I got introduced, I said hi to everyone and by noon that day someone had decided that I wasn't a nice person and told everyone and nobody wanted to sit with me at lunch. I thought I was just the new girl and that this would pass over quickly. So I was like, okay, that's fine. I can eat lunch alone for a little bit. I'll make some friends. I tried to be friendly towards people in my classes. I was in drama so I tried to be outgoing. But as time passed, people still weren't talking to me. I ended up sitting with my older sister in the hallway at lunch and people would walk by and make fun of us and we tried to be, laugh it off and be okay about it but it started in classes then where I'd go to class and I'd sit in the front because the cool kid sat in the back and I was not one of them and they would start whispering and making fun of me anytime I tried to answer a question from the teacher. I'd raise my hand and they'd all start giggling and at first teachers tried to stop them and they did what they could and I appreciated that but it got to a point that the teacher can't do anything. It's disrupted to the class, they tried their best, the principal can't stop them. These kids just kept going so I stopped raising my hand, I stopped asking questions and it made the whispering cut down for me. It still happened in the halls and when I stopped doing that and I stopped putting myself in a position which should be a normal learning environment for me, I stopped talking out in class, they found new ways to make fun of me. They started finding me and my sister in the hallway at lunch and they started throwing food at us. They started making fun of us so we'd move. We'd go sit somewhere where they thought they couldn't. We'd stay where supervisors were but teachers would end up closing their doors so that they didn't have to deal with what was happening in the hallways during their lunch breaks and I don't fault them for any of that. They're doing their best and these kids were relentless so we continued on and my older sister forced me to join the rugby team and it was not my choice and we started playing there and from there we started playing in a community league and I made friends in the community league and they happened to like me and they told me I was funny which I didn't know because previous to that I just got food thrown at me and so finding out that I could be funny and that I could make friends that I was worth something gave me self-confidence and like Jay said, when I started being myself and when I started opening up and seeing that I had positive qualities it made me more confident and so I brought that back to school and I made friends on my rugby team there and I brought that into the classroom and a few years later I started to make friends and I actually ended up making friends with that girl who told everyone that I wasn't a very nice person and I found out it was her because we were sitting in math class one day and I said something and she was laughing and she stopped and she looked at me and said Buffy, you're really funny. I have no idea why I told everyone you were such a mean person in grade nine. Oh, well thanks for that. A really fun few years for me but I don't dislike her for it at all. It was an honest, it was just her being a kid. Her trying to, which is not okay and she realizes now but she made a comment off hand to try and make herself feel better which wasn't appropriate which backlashed on me greatly and she sees that now and so if we can address that if we can address the moment where kids are taking out their own insecurities on other people not because they dislike other people or that there's a problem with them because they're so insecure and scared of themselves and becoming that target. For me it was finding a group of friends and finding myself. If we can get people having family support having friends, having teachers having people they can go to they can talk to, they can feel safe and they can be encompassed around then they have a little protective unit then everyone feels like they have a group and they aren't alone. So even if things are tough at school you can go to your group you can talk to them and tell them like hey this guy threw a sandwich at me and it sucked. You talk to your friends, address it maybe find a way to bring that up with teachers and get it addressed earlier than waiting the few years that I did or looking into my sister forcing me into sports. So I think the biggest thing for me was besides going through that and going through someone else's angst that was put on me finding friends, finding a helpful unit and working on yourself finding interests that you love for me it happened to be rugby for the man before me it was music but we both found a passion and we found ourselves within it and building that confidence helped us get through five years that are very difficult for a lot of people and aren't going away anytime soon. So I really think the biggest thing is what we're doing here is everyone's sitting down addressing, talking about it trying to find a way to get to the root of the problem instead of dealing with it once it is a problem. I actually greatly appreciate all of you for being here and for listening to my story. Thank you.