At Augusta meeting, students explore trauma of bullying

AUGUSTA – Muna Abdullahi, 17, is a black Muslim woman. When her family moved to Portland from Somalia in 1996, they were one of two families from the war-torn African nation that lived the city.

Abdullahi knows what it is like to be told she is different from her peers. At the very least, they know nothing of her background, religion or culture, and, at the very worst, they bully because her race and traditional Muslim clothing set her apart from the image many have of Maine.

The Portland High School junior on Friday issued a plea for respect and understanding as she and 10 other Cumberland County students performed at a conference on youth violence sponsored by Kids Legal Aid of Maine.

The teenagers performed a series of skits designed to be part of a Bullying-Harassment Youth Action Kit that will be available to middle and high schools this fall.

“Without your voice, we don’t remember why we do what we do,” Alison Beyea, project director of Kids Legal Aid of Maine and the conference organizer, told the students Friday after their performance.

Designed to be presented by high schoolers to younger students, the kit includes scripts, implementation guides, supplemental curriculum and assessment tools.

Developed by Portland playwright Cathy Plourde, who included one of Abdullahi’s poems, it was funded by Project Safe Neighborhoods, a program of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Jackson Benjamin, a 17-year-old native of the Sudan and a student at Wynflete School in Portland, said that bullying at his high school “was not a big deal, but middle school is all about bullying and who can get more respect.”

He said that it was very common for one student to randomly pick on another without thinking.

The goal of the play, according to Plourde, is get those students to stop and think before they act.

For more information on the Youth Action Kit, Cathy Plourde at 772-1167 or visit her site:

www.addverbproductions.com.