October 25-2013
Two Iranian-American high school students have received an award in Beverly Hills for an anti-bullying video they made.
The issue of bullying in schools has become a major concern all across North America in recent years. The latest wrinkle has been cyberbullying, using smart phones and social media to harass and demean a fellow student.
A few weeks ago, a 12-year-old girl in Florida jumped to her death after being bullied through cellphone apps, and a year ago Canadian teen Amanda Todd posted on YouTube about being cyberbullied and then committed suicide.
In an effort to combat bullying, the Beverly Hills Human Relations Commission held a contest for students to create and submit anti-bullying videos.
The winners in the fourth- through eighth-grade category were former students at the Yeshivat Yavneh Jewish school: Sara Sacks, Talia Mahboubi and Sarah Yadegari.
“I think everyone has been in a situation where they’ve felt vulnerable, and it’s usually because of what someone said,” Yadegari told the JewishJournal.com. “Everyone knows what bullying is because everyone has gone through it.”
In their video, titled “The Silent Word,” Yadegari stands in the hallway of Yavneh. Her peers take Post-it notes, with words on them like “puny,” “loser” and “freak” and stick them on the lockers all around her. A song plays in the background, but the actors are silent. The message of the video, which has nearly 2,000 hits on YouTube, is to “help those who can’t stand on their own … and bring bullying to an end.”
Mahboubi said, “Since it’s all silent, it has a stronger impact. It’s just really powerful because it’s a unique way to approach bullying.”
All three girls, who are 14 and in their first year of high school, have been friends for nine years. With the help of Lev Stark, executive director of Yavneh, they made the video and released it last May just as they finished eighth grade.
Jim Latta, a social worker and human services administrator for the Human Relations Commission of Beverly Hills, said that there were 15 entries to the contest, which is in its first year. The submissions were judged based on “creativity, educational value and message effectiveness.”
The girls received a proclamation last Tuesday at Beverly Hills City Hall.
“I feel really proud [about winning] because we really worked hard,” Mahboubi said. “I just feel accomplished. Even if we didn’t win, I would have still felt really good about doing something like this.”
According to Stark, the video has already been shown at public and private schools in New York and Los Angeles. “The video has a universal message and an important one, too,” he said.
Jamshid “Jimmy” Delshad, who emigrated from Iran in 1959, was a member of the Beverly Hills Jewish community who served on the City Council for eight years before retiring in 2011.