So a few days ago, a lady had innocently posted for the relationship X’s audience about her initial indifference about her husband and how she didn’t think he was attractive enough at the time. (Honestly I didn’t take too much time to read because, you know — it’s too much and a very chaotic street on X).
Whilst her post was innocently targeted at her audience, she indirectly triggered emotions and trauma deeply buried in the a lot of people who were her husband’s junior in secondary school. For context, I was also his junior and I can relate to a lot of these comments/stories. It was so bad that after I graduated, my dad said “none of his kids will ever step on a unity school” again and he made sure of that.
We all agree that bullying in schools is not an uncommon practice in schools; this doesn’t make it right neither have we founded a structure to eliminate this terrible act that influences and shapes kids through their formative years into young adults. The stories from the X drama were personal and other similar stories were shared on my class WhatsApp group and there were different reactions — some right, others naive or insensitive but it was really good to hear people talk about feelings they’ve bottled up for ~ 17 years or more.
As at yesterday night, I thought we had moved on but I was surprised when I saw a new discussion today about the issue— but this time tending towards snitches and some people trying to rewrite history. In the moment, I thought of what a sustainable solution could be and how people could heal or move forward.
My solution:
I don’t believe that there is a saviour anywhere (in the schools) that can scale but we need to build a system that makes school safer for kids. By safe I mean safe to engage with teachers, student and administrators. This might be as an independent body that randomly collects information about bullies and work with schools to address the situation. Whilst punitive measures can be effective (in some cases), we also need to take time to educate everyone on “making education safe for all”.
I don’t know if I can work on this anytime soon but I believe it’s something that can done through my upcoming fund (more information coming soon). But if to think it’s something you’re interested in, please do reach out by sending a DM on X @iyoaye and I’ll be happy to chat about this.
Side note: if you don’t know how bad this issue is, please take some time to watch the origin of madam koi koi on Netflix — it depicts some of these issues and I must warn it can be traumatic for folks who have experienced some sort of SV/A.
God loves you.
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