This Pink Shirt Day, Let’s Lift Each Other Up

In 2007, two boys from Nova Scotia took a stand against local bullies and started a movement. When a classmate in their high school was harassed for wearing a pink shirt on the first day of school, David Shepherd and Travis Price decided to do something about it. 

The teens bought over 50 pink shirts and handed them out to their classmates, creating a “sea of pink” in support of the boy who’d been bullied. That was the first Pink Shirt Day, an event that has since made its way across the country and is now recognized on the last Wednesday of February every year. 

In 2021, the event takes place on February 24 and the theme is Kindness Counts. In light of this powerful message, here are seven ways we should all strive to treat each other every day.

1. Be kind. Treat everyone with kindness and empathy, regardless of how you feel about them. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect, even those you don’t like. 
2. Be inclusive. Make it a point to be friendly with everyone you know, even the people who are different from you. You’ll make others feel good and could even make an unexpected friend.
3. Check in. If you know that someone in your life has recently gone through a hard time, call or text periodically to make sure they’re doing okay. 
4. Listen. Be a sounding board for friends who need to talk. However, don’t offer advice unless they ask for it. Sometimes, people just need to share what they’re going through in order to come up with their own solutions.
5. Think before you speak — or post. Sometimes we can hurt people without meaning to. Before you say or post something on social media, think about how others may perceive it, and keep your comments to yourself if you think someone might be hurt by them. 
6. Don’t gossip. Though it’s easy to get drawn into discussions about other people, these types of conversations are best avoided. Even if what you say isn’t meant to be hurtful, it’s unkind to discuss others without their knowing it.
7. Speak up. If you see someone getting bullied, don’t just stand there and watch. Instead, say something. Most bullying incidents stop within ten seconds of someone intervening.

Bullying in schools is an ongoing problem, but teaching young people how to treat others is a step in the right direction.