Flint Bullying Forum to be held Tuesday - ABC 12 – WJRT – Flint, MI

(11/13/12) - It's a night for students, parents and teachers across Mid-Michigan to take a stand against bullying - all kinds - verbal, physical and online.

"This is Flint, Bay City, Davison, Flushing. We want people to talk about Cyber Bullying. What they've seen. What they've experienced," said John Golaszewski, of the Department of Civil Rights.

School groups and organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club, plan to turn out in full force Tuesday night for the Flint Bullying Forum at Mott Community College. Many of the kids attending have experienced bullying themselves.

"It's humongous big. Everybody talking about it, I think our voices are going to be heard," said student Dequarius Garrett.

This will be the sixth in a statewide series of forums organized by the Michigan Department of Civil Rights.

"We went from Detroit to Grand Rapids to Traverse City to Benton Harbor to Marquette. We keep hearing the same stories," Golaszewski said.

"You walk down the hallway, you see someone coming and step out of the way, they end up tripping you," said student Javonte Houston. "I'm still getting bullied right now. It's like 'why are you picking on me? I never did anything to you'."

"We think education is a civil right. Every child, K-12, should have that equal opportunity to education without fear of coming to school, without being bullied," Golaszewski said.

The hope is that this forum will encourage those who have been bullied to speak up - and those who have been participating in the bullying to wake up.

"This is very important because now we're actually branching out and trying to stop bullying at the source. We really need to go out and tell them that this needs to stop now," said student Khalil Taylor.

ABC12's Dawn Jones will be hosting the event, which runs from 6-8 p.m. on Mott's campus.

Mateen Cleaves is one of the featured speakers.

For more information, click HERE.