The campaign -- Stop The B -- initiated by Vasundhara Oswal and her younger sister Riddhi Oswal

The campaign -- Stop The B --  initiated by Vasundhara Oswal and her younger sister Riddhi Oswal 

New Delhi, Dec 16  Two Indian origin girls who underwent the trauma of bullying in a European school have started a campaign to combat the menace which is now gathering global support.

The campaign -- Stop The B -- initiated by Vasundhara Oswal and her younger sister Riddhi Oswal, both living in Switzerland are the daughters of Oswal Business Group owner Pankaj Oswal.

The 14-year-old Ridhi was called names, pushed, taunted for her colour, features and race, and had to went through all this just because she was not as white as her Europeans colleagues. And this happened in one of prestigious schools of Switzerland, a school which is like a dream and fantasy for many Indian Asian families residing in Switzerland !

Her complaints fell on deaf ears, rather, the school chose to expel Ridhi by terminating her enrollment for the next year instead of taking action against the culprits.

But instead of succumbing to the pressure, she chose to fight back !

Vasundhara and Riddhi Oswal decided to start a unique campaign “Stop the B” which has now become a movement to create awareness against bullying activities in schools and colleges across the globe.

Oswal sister have shown that around one-third of young teens in the world are affected by bullying at school and the ‘StopTheB’ is raising awareness and educating people about the bullying problem. The main objective of is to encourage people into active-bystanders and recognise physical and cyber bullies, intervening when they see a problem.

Bullying is not a new phenomenon but it existed since ages. In most of the countries it is a crime but it does not have legal punishment under the law or a nominal punishment but this crime leaves a permanent scar on the personality of an individual’s for a very long time or in some case it left impression throughout the life.

Oswal sisters’ strong will and determination now taking this movement to the highest level where any bystander who witness a bullying activity or behaviour should intervene and stop it.

The recent studies has revealed that that around one-third of young teens in the world are affected by bullying at school and the statistics vary with the countries but in the Western countries, the number of such cases are as high as that around 35 percent of the teens have been witnessing it and the percentage goes up in case of cyberbullying.

While bullying lacks a legal definition in most countries, it is usually defined as behaviour that is intended to hurt someone and can be aimed at certain groups, because of their ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation. Bullying takes many forms and can include everything from physical assault to teasing, cyberstalking or writing cruel comments on social media or on group chats. Sometimes, victims do not even realize that what they are experiencing is bullying.

Apart from raising awareness and educating people about the bullying problems, the main objective of StopTheB is to encourage people into active-bystanders and also to identify the physical and cyber bullies and to intervene when they see such problems.

“StoptheB” has already received attention of several renowned experts in the field of children’s rights, school violence and bullying such as Dr. Sameer Hinduja of US and Dr Zoe Moody of Switzerland and the ace-football player Cristiano Ronaldo has endorsed the Oswal sisters bold initiatives.

Source - UNI