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Celebrities Join Bully Victim Lizzie Velasquez in Campaign against Bullying

October is considered the National Bullying Prevention month in the U.S., wherein several anti-bullying programs and activities are scheduled to happen.  Although the activities lean more towards bullying in schools, some of the messages behind the campaigns are also applicable for employees bullied at work or how it may eventually affect the emergence of bullies in the workplace.  One campaign that has gained the support of celebrities and other people is Lizzie Velasquez’s call for a Safe Schools Improvement Act.

Lizzie Velasquez, a bully victim who suffers from a rare syndrome that prevents her from gaining weight, took inspiration from her heartbreaking experience after seeing herself as a subject of a Youtube video nearly 10 years ago that labelled her as the “World’s Ugliest Woman.”  Today, she has become a motivational speaker, activist and a star in her own right.  She was also the subject of a recent documentary titled “A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story,” which chronicled her life and her journey to get Congress to approve a Safe Schools Improvement Act.

Now, celebrities such as Chris Hemsworth, Sara Bareilles, Michelle Phan, Octavia Spencer, Katie Couric, Tori Kelly, Kacey Musgraves, Derek Hough, Dr. Oz and Zachary Levi have pledged in a video, that they are “with Lizzie.”

Hopefully with the Safe Schools Improvement Act, school officials and parents will take better notice of the bullying behavior of some children and address it early on.  It would definitely help to limit the number of bullies entering the work place in the future.

To read more about Velasquez’s proposed Safe Schools Improvement Act and to watch her anti-bullying video on People, click here.

 

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Moisturizer Ad for Men Takes on Football Bullies

The presence of bullies can be seen and felt almost everywhere.  Children and adolescents may find a bully in their neighborhood or school, while employees experience bullying at work.  Bullies in the workplace also cuts across various industries and scenarios.  Interestingly, football bullies were also featured in the new Nivea for Men advert.

The less than one minute commercial stars professional football player Adam Lallana and other Liverpool teammates.  The commercial starts with Lallana staring into the camera, before he is subjected to various “tortures” such as a dog licking his face, a child smearing him with paint and a grandmother kissing him.  Aside from those incidents, the British athlete also had to face football bullies who threw two buckets full of ice water at him.  The cold water splash was courtesy of Liverpool teammates Philippe Coutinho and Martin Skrtel.  Another quick scene showed abuse at work when goal keeper Simon Mignolet threw a football directly at his face.  Ouch!

And while the abuse that Lallana endured in the commercial may have been fictional and the workplace bullying scene was part of a script, it still showed how anyone can be targets of workplace bullying.  The act need not be as extreme as the physical tortures that the commercial’s star was subjected to.  Bullying can also be through simple acts or verbal abuse.  In sports, some of these antics may seem like fun and games to other people, but for victims of bullying, it is a painful and stressful experience.

Still, the skin moisturizer advert presented a quick peek of football bullies, and how men can fortify their skin by using the product.

 

Click here to learn more about the advert.