This petition supports the use of dance and expressive movements methodology as a best practice suitable to integrate the EU policies in the fight against bullying. The petition will be given to the European Parliament’s Committees CULT and LIBE together with a White Paper. The White Paper represents a document that will set-up a series of recommendations in order to integrate the already existing documents into a broader set of policies on the contribution that dance and expressive movement methods can give to addressing the bullying phenomenon.

There are different perceptions of violence and bullying in every single society, therefore, exists ambiguity about the exact meaning of the term bullying. Bullying is a particular form of violence, which is characterized by its duration and repetition, as well as the imbalance of power. One way of defining bullying is - an activity of repeated, aggressive behavior intended to hurt another individual, physically, mentally, or emotionally. School bullying is a type of bullying that occurs in any educational environment. This act can take different forms, such as: Physical, Psychological/Mental, Sexual, Cyber.

Bullying is not an isolated phenomenon and it is a worrisome issue worldwide. Based on the research conducted in Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italy and Romania (the research is developed within the project “Dance Against Bullying”, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission.), it is evident that bullying is a common problem, regardless of the cultural, economic and political differences in the countries. Bullying remains widespread in every society, every country, every social group, affecting the school environment. All over the world, children, teenagers, adults, parents and teachers are struggling with bullying on a daily basis. Bullying is a phenomenon with serious consequences on children and young people’s social, cognitive and mental development that has been long identified as a significant concern for policy-makers, schools and health-care providers.

Bullying, regardless of the form it takes a very serious act, which leads to traumatic consequences for the bullied child, including desocialization, anxiety, depression, somatization (headaches, stomach aches, illnesses), self-destructive or even suicidal behaviour, dropping out of school have loss of self-esteem, difficulty reaching out to others, develop avoidance behaviour, or may commit suicide (bullycide).

There is no clear legal definition of bullying due to different views of violence and bullying in every single society. Insufficient legal frameworks on national level is a serious setback for successfully tackling bullying on European level. In this situation methodologies for prevention and fighting against bullying are implemented predominately on individual and school level, instead of community or national level. However, they are still not enough for effective prevention and fighting against bullying.

The results of the survey, carried out within the DAB project, show the necessity of new effective and innovative methodologies for tackling bullying. Dance and body expression offer an alternative to the generally used prevention and tackling methods, based on sanction and punishment. Although dance and body expression comprise an innovative methodology, the survey results show that dancing activities are well accepted by the youth workers, teachers and school psychologists as an anti-bullying method. Most of them consider that using the dance and body expression-based methodology as an inclusive method has a significant impact on the problem.

The methodology developed within the DAB - Dance Against Bullying project improves the competences and knowledge of youth workers and promotes the use of dance as a tool to tackle bullying. This methodology integrates the good practices already existing within a new approach based on dance and expressive movements and helps young people to develop self-esteem, confidence to stand up against bullying behaviours and have the opportunity to release emotions they might have repressed during bullying situation, or even let go of feelings that cannot be verbalized but danced out. Through the structured methodology, participants are guided to experience the different roles in a bullying situation - the bullied, the passive and active observer and the bully, helping them understand the phenomenon, build a strategy to prevent or end a bullying situation and to build confidence.

Your ONE VOTE can truly make a difference to tackle and defeat the worrisome social problem of bullying, affecting many young people worldwide.

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