Bullying is rife in Romania, a new study shows, with at least nine out of 10 children in rural communities victims of some kind of abuse in schools last year, according to the World Vision report.
The study against violence in schools was released on Thursday, the International Day of Nonviolence in Schools, by World Vision Romania.
Some 93% of children in villages last year suffered some kind of bullying at school, according to the “Well-being of the child in rural areas” report.
Starting in February, World Vision Romania Foundation is launching 35 projects worth 900,000 euros which are funded by the SAVE (“School Anti-Violence Ecosystem”) program for preventing and combating violence against children at school and in the playground.
Verbal violence is the main form of harassment children suffer at school.
- About a third (31%) of the situations in which the child was humiliated in public, made a fool of in front of classmates, the teacher was the aggressor.
- 43% of parents and 29% of children say that following the announcement of the aggression, no action was taken.
- 40% of middle and high school students do not know if their school has a counselor.
- 37% of teachers feel either little or not at all prepared to identify children who are victims of violence
- In the case of school bullying, 45% of teachers believe that they “know what they have to do”.
Projects against violence against students, implemented in schools in 35 counties
The World Vision Romania Foundation is starting 35 projects funded by the SAVE program to prevent and combat violence against children in the school environment. The projects are funded by grants of 15,000 euros and 30,000 euros, totaling 900,000 euros, co-financed by the European Union, managed by the World Vision Romania Foundation and implemented by 35 NGOs from 20 counties of the country. The projects were selected in 2024, and the NGOs benefited from specialized training.
All projects include at least three types of intervention to prevent and combat violence in the school environment:
- information and awareness activities for children and parents;
- training activities for teachers and non-teaching staff in pre-university education units;
- exchange of good practices, networking and advocacy activities with relevant experts and institutions in the field of school education and child protection.
“We already know that… most students (over half) would talk to the teacher-headmaster, a third would talk toclose colleagues or the school principal and only a quarter would talk to their parents,”said Mihaela Nabăr, executive director of World Vision Romania.
“School is the place where children need to feel and be safe, to know that they are listened to and understood when they run into difficulties. It is essential to build an educational environment based on respect, empathy and quick intervention, in which each child can develop without fear of being bullied or humiliated,” she added.
She said schools needed teams of specialists to support teachers “and contribute to the creation of a safe ecosystem, ” where students are protected from violence.
Some 100,000 people in the education system will benefit from projects financed through the SAVE program.
The projects are focused on preventing and combating all forms of violence: violence in general (24 projects), bullying (10 projects), cyber-bullying (four projects), gender-based violence (three projects), violence against children with SEN (one project), violence against children with health issues (one project).
The activities proposed in schools by the funded NGOs include both classic information and training activities (workshops, lessons, meetings with parents, etc.) and interactive and innovative activities: art exhibitions (art-voice, drawings/works); contests of video materials, slogans, drawings/works; theater (puppet theater, forum theater, social theater); virtual reality tools; development of educational platforms; study visits; innovation laboratories; tools, materials and working methods for teachers complementing curricular, extra-curricular and extracurricular activities, etc.
World Vision Romania Foundation will launch new calls for 30 projects, with grants of 5,000 euros, on similar topics in the next two years. The list of selected projects as well as details of the calls for projects are available on the webpage of the SAVE (School Anti-Violence Ecosystem) programme: https://worldvision.ro/proiect-save/
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