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In a country where gangsterism, with its accompanying violence, brutality and death has become a daily topic, with hundreds of young people entering the criminal justice system as offenders, and the urgent need to stem the growing incidence of juvenile crime in South Africa, it would seem to be important that as a nation we take bullying behaviour very seriously, especially within our schools, and where our young people are at risk of falling victims.



According to a blog by Phil Stutz & Barry Michels “Adolescence is when most of us decide to hide the part of ourselves we’re most ashamed of - what Jung called The Shadow. In every adolescent there is a powerful drive to fit in, to conform to the norms of a peer group. In order to do this, the individual must hide any qualities that are nonconforming. An adolescent girl starves herself to be thin; an adolescent boy conceals his emotional sensitivity.” The difference between the average, insecure, shadow-hiding kid and a bully is that the bully adopts a more aggressive strategy: the bully targets someone who doesn’t fit in, someone “different,” and persecutes him relentlessly. This is reassuring to the bully because it diverts attention from his Shadow. It works even better if he can get others to join in the group united around a common enemy; their unstated motto is, “We don’t have Shadows, the only Shadow is that kid over there.”



Groups of bullies often become violent gangs that are involved in crime, so schools need to respond pro-actively to bullying to prevent it becoming gangsterism. Research shows that most children believe that when they report the bullying to an educator nothing is going to be done to stop it. Sadly we have seen the outcome of this broken trust between educators and pupils. The recent case of young Ndlovu who was shot dead by a fellow learner in retaliation for being bullied; this is a sad example of how bullying behavior has deteriorated out of control. Sadly with the loss of this young life, the community seems to be relieved that young Ndlovu was shot, with some comment “he deserved what he got”. But should there not have been proper intervention programs in Schools, and within the community? Perhaps young Ndlovu would still be alive and the victims of bullies would not have to take such drastic action of killing one another to stop this social ill.



It is vital that we work together as a community to educate our children of the dangers of bullying and how they should respond if they fall victims of bullies.  Educators have a big role to play to prevent bullying in schools. They need to understand the emotional distress that pupils experience; they need to show respect and treat pupils equally without being biased. Teachers also need to indicate that any form of bullying is not acceptable both on and off the school campus, but most importantly teachers need to create an environment whereby pupils feel safe to report to the teachers knowing that they will get help from teacher, rather than becoming staff room topic.



Through our Diversion service, NICRO offers programs, programs that assist and help young people to understand and be able to adapt to changes that they are going through. NICRO assists child, youth and adult offenders to prevent further delinquent and criminal behavior, and to prevent juvenile offenders from becoming adult offenders who are firmly entrenched in a life of crime.  Examples of such programs that NICRO offers in schools would be our Safety Ambassadors Intervention; this intervention is grounded in the concept of developing and mentoring “safety ambassadors” at secondary school level. Safety ambassadors are selected young people who have been empowered with the necessary skills, knowledge, experience and motivation to serve as positive role models. Safety ambassadors interact with and positively influence circles of youth, dissuading them from participating in anti-social behaviour and criminal activities.