I believe we’re talking about disrespect and human cruelty here. Also male entitlement.

I have recently been working with a very well-informed and creative woman and the entire community (including many men) of a tiny island, to develop and implement a program called WeChoose. It has been developed for a small island in the Caribbean that most of you have probably never heard about — Bequia (fun to google if you haven’t). We’re a small, unique and closely knit community. Here is the link to this program that our community designed which is also called Don’t Trouble We https://wechoosesvg.org

I am thinking that a program of this kind which involves the participation of a everyone in the community would be a good idea to implement in all of our schools in the US.

Being a writer of fiction and therefore a close observer of human nature I’m afraid we will never get rid of the male or female bullies that exist in our ranks. What we can do however, is reach out to those, who simply do not realize the extent of the pain their bullying causes to others. Change is always incremental and dialogue and communication move it along.

I became involved in this issue when I was made aware that a ten year old girl in my writing class was being sexually abused. There is no governmental infrastructure on Bequia to deal with this problem. As a result of this knowledge I have worked over the last year with our community to create this program, and have raised funds for it. If you’d like to support it as well please hit the donate button on the website. If you want to start a program like this for your school, please reach out to the founder Nicolle Trudeau through the Wechoose website.