One Goal, One Community: Moving beyond bullying and empowering for life

The “One Goal, One Community” Ethos

We have one goal - to move beyond bullying and empower people for life, and we will stand together as one community to achieve that goal.

We will achieve this with our students as leaders and agents of positive change.

The primary goal of this program is to engage members from all corners of the community in face-to-face conversations about bullying. It is our hope that through information sharing and discussion, people will become more aware of issues related to bullying, more comfortable talking about bullying with each other, and more likely to act in ways that dramatically reduce, and ideally eliminate, bullying in our community.

The “One Goal, One Community” Pledge

“By signing this pledge, I acknowledge that bullying takes place in numerous forms
in our community (e.g., physical, verbal, covert and cyber) and at every stage of life.
I hereby commit to actively engage in behaviours aimed at putting an end to bullying
and collectively bettering our society.”

As a visible way to support the program, we ask people to commit to the pledge above with their signature on a “One Goal, One Community” commitment sheet or canvas. These sheets and canvases are not petitions, rather they are visible signals of a person’s commitment to behave in positive, anti-bullying ways. These commitment sheets are not on Facebook or Twitter... they represent conversations people are having with each other, and commitments being made between people in face-to-face contexts.

“One Goal, One Community” Outcomes

The “One Goal, One Community” initiative has been running for three years. To date, we have had over 260 businesses and community organisations and 30 schools across Australia and the United States come together in a partnership with Bond University to participate in and commit to this anti-bullying initiative. By early 2012, we exceeded 50,000 people having committed to the program in face-to-face settings via commitment sheets and canvases. Amazed by the rapid expansion of the program, we have stopped tracking commitment numbers and have now taken a singular focus on generating more of our most successful outcomes – the individual face-to-face conversations people are having and the resultant positive changes people are making as a part of our collective and united stand against bullying.

“One Goal, One Community” Resources

To help facilitate information sharing, discussion, and commitment to engage in positive anti-bullying behaviours, we have created resources that are available for public use. These include three videos, a pledge commitment sheet and booklet, and homework designed for students to do with their parents.

With respect to the three videos: “Positive Change Starts with Me,” “Be a Defender,” and “Join us with One Goal,” the content is drawn from two sources:

1. People’s real life stories. Everything that is shared in the videos actually happened to the person/people who are sharing their reflections. There are no actors in our films, only contributors – people who have personally been affected by bullying and are strong and compassionate enough to share their stories to help others learn.
2. Facts, statistics, and data. The information and statistics we share in our videos and outreach materials are all drawn from government publications and high quality research studies. Our focus is on information related to recognizing and understanding different types of bullying, behaviours enacted during bullying incidents, the perspectives of people who have been bullied or who have watched it taking place, and positive and constructive ways to address bullying.