The Romanian Police, together with its social project partner, Mantia, the social good division of the Mercury360 agency, launched a new awareness campaign addressed to students, teachers and parents, to increase the degree of safety of students both in their daily life day as well as online.
The purpose of the new campaign is to increase awareness among parents, teachers, students, as well as at the society level, regarding the need to ensure an optimal safety climate in the school environment, by preventing the victimization of minors, preventing and combating juvenile delinquency and / or criminality in the school environment, but also drug trafficking.
In recent years, school violence has become an alarming phenomenon both for children, parents, educators, and for the entire community. This form of violence is represented by the set of planned or spontaneous aggressive actions that take place in the premises or in the area adjacent to pre-university education units. And aggressive behavior can manifest itself from verbal abuse, physical abuse, to the destruction of property.
Unfortunately, in Romania, one out of two students is a victim of bullying. That is, more than one million students are humiliated, threatened or physically assaulted in the country’s schools (according to a 2023 report).
On the other hand, drug trafficking has increased in the school area, drug use among students becoming an issue of interest to all of us.
Violence is not perceived as an extraordinary warning to parents and is often categorized as something normal. There is an ever-increasing level of tolerance in schools in Romania towards verbal or physical violence, and the need for a campaign that would raise an alarm signal was obvious.
Campania „Silence is still violence. Your voice is the solution” is based on a very simple and powerful observation: When we do not take a stand against violence in schools, we are complicit in that form of aggression. Basically, by not saying anything, we validate the aggressor’s behavior towards a child in the school environment.
Reality tells us another worrying thing: 6 out of 10 children facing an act of school violence say nothing. To no one.
But there is a power within everyone’s reach: that of speaking out, of stopping violence in whatever form it manifests itself. Because, by the simple fact that you talk about an act of school violence, you can radically change the outcome of that situation and you will stop a future aggression.
You have the power to speak, signal and STOP.
Campania exposes this exhortation, in a first phase, through a 30-second awareness TV, an online video and a series of printed materials that will be exhibited in schools nationwide. Moreover, one Message of national interest will urge the general public to speak up and report cases of student violence to Unique National Number for children – 119.
Campania „Silence is still violence. Your voice is the solution” has a national coverage and will be carried out on a national level during the entire 2024-2025 school year, through TV, OOH, print media channels, as well as in the digital environment.
Laura SîrbuAccount Director, Mantia / Mercury 360:
“A phenomenon that is becoming accepted exposes in perspective, unfortunately, a risk in the medium and long term. We risk that the phenomenon of violence in the school space will grow and become a “accepted phenomenon” by society. And acceptance is also a form of complicity.
This is what our campaign aims to do, to make us aware of the importance of our actions, the fact that we have this power, to speak and stop school violence from its first form of manifestation.
It’s easy to give voice to a simple “Hey! Stop!”
Teo UngureanuGroup Creative Director, Mantia / Mercury 360:
“Maybe some of us have gotten used to the situation of violence in schools in Romania. Maybe it’s just something normal that will sort itself out in time…because time usually does, right? And, maybe it won’t affect the future of these children…
But, unfortunately, in the future the reality will hit us and tell us something completely different: the impact of the violence will leave deep traumas on these children and will follow them all their lives. It will affect them socially, relationally, in all stages of their lives.
And we will choose to go our way and not bear the responsibility for the lack of action from that moment when we could have intervened and stopped the VIOLENCE.
Because we chose to be SILENT. And to be silent witnesses to the violence…
The message of this campaign is simple, direct and in the PRESENT tense: Talk NOW about VIOLENCE! Because YOUR VOICE IS THE SOLUTION!”
Alexandru Leuțu Cotroceanudirector of the School Safety Directorate – General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police:
At the level of the General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police, the CAMPAIGN “Silence is still violence” was initiated. Your voice is the solution”, to ensure an optimal safety climate in the school environment. It is a necessary approach of the Police, considering the recurrence of acts of violence in the school space, which is part of the line of actions aimed at carrying out social campaigns with impact among students, teachers and parents.
At the same time, we are launching through this social campaign a new information channel, www.sigurantascolara.ro, through which information and recommendations of the responsible structures within the Romanian Police or partner institutions will be presented, for the creation of an optimal school safety climate, but also the modes of action, procedures and legislation incident to the field of school safety, campaigns / programs / prevention projects carried out at the level of educational units with the aim of increasing the degree of safety in the school environment.
Furthermore, our campaign will contain an important information and awareness component: a public interest message broadcast through mass media (it will be broadcast by television and radio stations with national and local coverage).
I remind you that cases of school violence, serious cases, which represent an emergency, can be reported through the National Single Emergency Call Service 112, and the National Single Number for children – 119 – can report cases of abuse, neglect and exploitation of the child.
The ultimate goal of our actions and campaigns is to build a safe school environment for the harmonious development of our children!”
Credits:
Team Mercury360 and Mantle: Liviu Țurcanu (Creative Director), Teo Ungureanu (Group Creative Director), Roxana Păduraru (Art Director), Loredana Hatingher (Client Service & Business Director), Laura Sîrbu (Account Director).
Romanian Police:
- Chief Police Commissioner Alexandru Leuțu Cotroceanu, Director of the School Safety Directorate within the Romanian Police,
- Police Quaestor Georgian Drăgan, Cabinet Director of the Inspector General of the Romanian Police,
- Chief Police Commissioner Radu Daniel, director of the Institute for Research and Prevention of Crime within the Romanian Police,
- Police chief Marcel Simion, president of the National Police Corps.
Production partners: 2029 Productions
Producer: Marius Erhan
Source: www.iqads.ro
