'L-Għajnuna hi Prezzjuża’, a book that teaches children to respect one another and not resort to bullying, was launched on Wednesday evening at the Agenda Bookshop of the Valletta Waterfront.

Miller Distributors have published this book written by Greta Antignolo after seeing the potential as it links well to the Maltese syllabus of grade 2 .The story not only helps children learn the importance of being kind to each other but it also teaches them to seek help and speak out when things are not going the way they should be. At the same time they will also be learning the days of the week and the parts of the human body in the Maltese language.

The author graduated as a B.ed Hons Primary teacher in 2016 and is currently teaching at San Anton school . After her own personal experience with bullying she had an aim to work harder to try and minimise this problem. In fact she also focused her thesis around this issue. The book was in fact written as part of her thesis together with a number of other resources. The aim of the resource pack is to prevent bullying among 6, 7 and 8 year old children. Greta is now serving as Vice President with the NGO ‘bBrave’ whose aim is to help bullies and their victims.

A number of special guests, including Education Minister Evarist Bartolo and ‘bBrave’ president and general secretary Norman Zammit and Aaron Zammit Apap, gave short speeches.

Minister Bartolo said the book would be a good tool for teachers to use in their classrooms. The Minister also spoke about the importance to prevent bullying from a young age and explained how together with his colleagues they are working on new schemes to work upon this problem

The President of bBrave, Ing. Norman Zammit spoke about the various forms of bullying, and the NGO’s journey to date. Individuals experiencing some form of bullying should realise that they are not alone in their ordeal because bBrave is growing to be there to support them, he said. bBrave also intends to help individuals demonstrating bullying attitudes to better direct their emotions.

Aaron Zammit Apap, Secretary General, explained that children should learn from a young age that bullying is not on. He spoke of the deficit of role models in our society, and children's rights to look up to their seniors. Glorifying bad behaviour presents grave societal repercussions, and society seems to be far more accepting of untoward behaviour on the social media.

A summary of bBrave's operations over its first year was also given.

Photos Michael Camilleri