A pink wave that started last fall in Nova Scotia is now sweeping the country, also leaving its mark on Mount Baker Secondary School in Cranbrook. Last Wednesday, students and staff of the school - dressed in all shades of pink - made their mark to stand up against bullying.

"This nation-wide campaign was originally started when  a male student was bullied for wearing pink which eventually drove him to commit suicide," explains Eric Sin with the Student Leadership Group and adds, "It is wonderful to see that so many students have participated in trying to prevent this from happening again."

"Bullying is a big one," agrees Fred Subra with Student Services. Every year, he says, teachers and staff try to raise awareness about the problem. "Anything fun we can do to get people to think about it is good," Subra points out.

One of the participants in the protest is Grade 10 student Dean Ernst and he has a very personal stake in the issue. "I have been bullied before myself," he states. He believes it helps to have the support of a large group of people. It shows, Ernst says, that it does not matter if you are different from the mainstream. "So you stand out - so what?" Ernst asks.

While the Mount Baker Pink Day targets bullying in general, School District 5 (SD5) will be looking at one specific form of bullying in a series of workshops later this month. Tom Piros is the Social Responsibility coordinator with SD5 and says cyber-bullying has become a worrisome problem in the past years.

Referrals Piros gets from parents and students indicate that one in three students have been part of cyber-bullying in some form, either as bully, as victim or as a witness. "The vast majority of kids are usually bystanders where they're cc'd on an email," Piros says.

While the effects of physical bullying are usually quite visible, cyber-bullying often happens out of sight of adults either in schools, at home or around neighbourhoods. This could mean anything from hurtful emails to text messages or biting remarks in chatrooms.

Nonetheless, Piros emphasizes, the effects on children's self-esteem, the building of personal relationships and a feeling of being safe and valued can be devastating. "We find the emotional change of subversive forms of bullying can have a long-lasting effect," Piros states.

There is no concrete data yet on how many students in SD5 are affected by cyber-bullying, but Piros points out they will be collecting this information over the next period of time. From what he is seeing in the field, cyber-bullying seems to be hitting especially hard at middle schools with most of the activity peaking by Grade 10. SD5 in its Code of Conduct states it does not tolerate any type of bullying and cyber-bullying is mentioned explicitly.

Piros is convinced that while schools can take a lead role in combating cyber-bullying, this is a community-based problem and everybody has to work together to deal with it pro-actively. This is why one of the two workshops offered is geared towards schools as well as members of the various community players, from the RCMP to mental health organizations. In a second session, parents will get a chance to learn how cyber-bullying affects their kids and how they can help reduce the problem.

"There is no silver bullet in combating bullying and violence of this kind," Piros says. He adds what he can offer the community is to give awareness of the problem and tools to construct building blocks to work with everybody. He encourages anybody interested in the sessions to contact their neighbourhood school or the SD5 office in Cranbrook.