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Students work together for a bullying-free school

Students work together for a bullying-free school

Students working together to create a peaceful school

June 2009: In the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas School in northern El Salvador, a group of 12 children, parents, teachers and other school staff came together to create a manual for their school based on co-existing peacefully with one another.

The school manual sets out rules and standards of behaviour for students and teachers. Keeping the ethos of participation at the very heart of school life, student committees that preserve the peace and deliberate on adequate punishment for offending students were formed.

Some areas the committees looked at included responding to emergencies, conflict mediation and student government.

Speaking out

The blueprint for this kind of student engagement was initiated by Plan through the ‘Step by step manual towards school coexistence and student participation’. This manual sets out how students can actively participate in drafting their own rules for school and highlights ways of ensuring everyone sticks to them.

“The manual has helped us a lot to show that our opinion counts and that we are an important part of our school,” said Amalia, a 15-year-old school girl on the co-existence committee.

The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas School was part of a pilot project undertaken by Plan and the Ministry of Education which was so successful that the government is rolling it out in all 5,000 schools in El Salvador.

Read the school manual in Spanish

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When the school year started, my father refused to provide my school dues. Since I did not have textbooks, I was beaten in front of others and driven away from school for one week. I was very ashamed and thought of leaving school.

Girl, 10 years old, Cameroon