Adult, would you help? The City of Vantaa launched a campaign against bullying and sexual harassment – the videos are based on real-life events.

Today the 25th of September, the City of Vantaa launched a campaign against bullying, harassment and inappropriate behaviour towards children and young people. In addition to city employees, children and young people have been strongly included in the campaign. Children and young people have told the working group for the campaign about their experiences of bullying and harassment and other situations in which they would have wanted an adult to intervene. Children and young people also told about situations in which an adult had intervened and helped.  

The scenes featured in the campaign are based on children and young people’s stories of the bullying and harassment they have experienced. For example, the upper secondary school Tikkurilan lukio, participated in the planning of the campaign.

– A course on the basics of communications was organized in the Tikkurilan lukio upper secondary school, and ideas for short social media videos were collected from the suggestions collected through the course. According to Communicator Sofia Åberg, who also wrote the scripts for the videos, the campaign slogan “Autatko sinä?” (“Would you help?”) was formed based on children and young people’s suggestions.  

Campaign helps address bullying and harassment issues

The purpose of the campaign is to evoke emotions and inspire conversation as well as guide adults to intervene in situations where children and young people experience harassment or bullying. At the end of each video, the viewer is given instructions for how to help a child or young person in a real-life situation. The campaign video has been published in the eight most common languages in Vantaa: Finnish, Swedish, English, Arabic, Albanian, Somali, Russian and Estonian. This ensures that as many viewers as possible can learn about the campaign in their native language. The campaign focuses on social media and outdoor advertising, but it is also visible in other public places in Vantaa, such as the information screens of libraries. 

According to statistics, there is a lot of bullying during autumn

Adult, would you help? The campaign will be implemented in September–October, because autumn and November in particular are, according to statistics, times when bullying is prevalent.  

– There are many contributing factors, including the general malaise and tiredness of children and young people, says Specialist Hanna Rönnblom Specialist in bullying intervention.  

Vantaa is the first municipality in Finland to employ a specialist in bullying intervention. 

How you can help? 

Guardians of children and young people play an important role in the fight against bullying and harassment. Children’s behaviour is influenced by what they learn at home when they follow their guardians’ example in things like attitude, speech, demands and encouragement.  

— Having guardians who are present and willing to listen and who show that they care is a source of strength for children and young people. Children can be taught how to treat others and that they can and should talk about difficult things. Children and young people should also know how to address bullying. It gives them the security and courage to talk to adults, according to Rönnblom. 

If an adult encounters a child or young person and suspects that they are being bullied or mistreated, the adult can ask them if everything is all right. The most important thing is that instead of leaving the child or young person alone, the adult intervenes in the situation. The situation should also be monitored until both the victim and the bully have got out of the situation. Sometimes situations require the help of authorities and professionals, in which case you need to call the general emergency number 112. The only situations in which bystanders should not intervene, for their own safety, are the ones involving violence or, for example, edged weapons.  

Child-Friendly City Initiative in Vantaa 

• In early 2021, the City of Vantaa was accepted into UNICEF’s Child-Friendly City model.  The Child-Friendly City model is a tool for implementing the rights of children as fully as possible in the daily life of every child in the city. It identifies the areas of children’s rights in which the city still needs to improve.  
• Work for the Child-Friendly City means extensive, systematic and sustained effort at all levels of the municipal organization: decision-making, administration and services. An important part of the work is that children and young people are involved in the decision-making, planning, implementation, development and evaluation of matters that concern them. In Vantaa, a city-level coordination group is responsible for the work.  
• If Vantaa achieves its goals for promoting work that is based on the rights of children, it will receive the Child-Friendly City Award from UNICEF at the turn of 2023–2024.  UNICEF's Child-Friendly City model involves 53 municipalities and already reaches more than half of the children living in Finland.   
• Childhood is an exceptional and unique period in a person's life. The realisation of children's rights indicates that the individual and society are well and function correctly. The rights of children safeguard the growth and development of every child. All children have the right to non-discrimination and equality. Children’s rights are the responsibility of adults, which means that it is the duty of adults to ensure every child's right to a life free from bullying, violence, harassment and inappropriate behaviour.