I keep seeing two television videos that portray important life values, titled “Character” and “Reaching Out.” I visited the sponsoring website, passiton.com, to see what other topics were being featured from the Foundation for a Better Life. These public service campaigns were created to demonstrate values that have a positive influence in our communities and are excellent tools to use as models for our children, teens, and young adults. Each video displays an uplifting message, using actors from different ages, genders, and culture groups.
The scene for the “Character” video is a high school hallway where a boy is bullied for not having friends. An older varsity student observes the bullying and leaves his friends to ask if the boy is all right. The helpful boy tells him “See you around.” What was interesting was that almost all of the cast members said they identified with the student who was bullied. A female actress told the director about the differences between girls and boys being bullied, and this revelation inspired the development of another video about bullying. In the “Reaching Out” video, a new student trying to find a table to eat lunch at and is verbally bullied and isolated when she tries to sit with a group of girls. Almost all of the female actors were able to relate to the situation.
Both of these videos depicted individuals who were willing to reach out to someone who was being physically, socially, or verbally bullied. We call those individuals, Upstanders! Feel free to follow these two links to view the two videos.
https://www.passiton.com/inspirational-stories-tv-spots/72-lockerhttps://www.passiton.com/inspirational-stories-tv-spots/66-cafeteria
Article submitted on December 26, 2021, by Renee’ Ruffin-Price, Community Advocate for Children, for the January 2022 issue of Al Dia Today.