21/10/2015

In certain parts of the world, October is earmarked as the anti-bullying month, but for a growing number of countries across the European Union, the high point is EU Code Week.

ENABLE – the European Network Against Bullying in Learning and Leisure Environments – combined the two “celebrations” in a rather unique way this year with an anti-bullying hackathon, inviting young people worldwide to create the tools and platforms they believe will make the online and offline world a better place. The very innovative ideas they have come up with will now undergo further development to become part of a toolkit that will shortly be made available to educators in ENABLE countries and beyond. The toolkit will be just one of the strategies the team will launch, in a strategy targeted at social and emotional skill building through peer mentoring in a holistic approach that includes not only young people in their transition years from childhood to adolescence, but also their teachers, educators and parents. See the winning ideas put forward in the hackathon:

1.TEAM: David Knauf (16), Tim Oster (15), Lucas Wippert (16), Hendrik Hofstadt (17) – winners of the Special Prize

MENTOR: Stefanie Rack

TITLE: Cyberbullying First Aid App – a video/photo-based solution designed to appeal to young people who may engage in bullying behavior, by using emotional video sequences

COUNTRY: Germany

2.TEAM: Karim Hatem Said Gad (15), Mohamed Mohab Safwat (15), Mohamed Mahmoud Hamza (15) - students from the New Generation International School and Vodafone Egypt

MENTOR: Mushira Sabry

TITLE: S!BB (The Student Instant Backup Bracelet) – a presentation of a bracelet that acts as a help button in a combination with an app. The idea is to help connect students and create a support network so that they could help each other whenever there is a bullying accident

COUNTRY: Egypt

3.TEAM: Cille (17), Noah (14), Angel (age n/a) - the members of this team are anonymous users of the Danish helpline Cyberhus which offers online counseling for young people and thus, they chose to remain anonymous during the development of this project as well

MENTOR:Niels-Christian Bilenberg

TITLE: Behaviour Tweaker  an app that fights bullying by rewarding good behavior

COUNTRY: Denmark

4.TEAM: Elisa Usai Marmolejo (13), Victor Cortes Solano (16), Gabriela Calderon Hernandez (15), Gabriel Garita Jimenez (15)

MENTOR: Mariam Carpio Abraham Pineda Zelaya

TITLE: Treelp – an educational app designed to help young people understand bullying as well as to provide guidance for adults on how they can help young people deal with this issue

COUNTRY: Costa Rica

5.TEAM: Polina Bdul (14), Anastasiya Denysenko (14), Denis Drozh (15), Valeriya Lazarenko (14), Daria Kononyuk (14)

MENTOR: Maryna Maksymenko & Olga Hasavchenko

TITLE: Polite Internet User – this solution focuses on several target groups:

-For social network administrators: digital pictures contest, filter in social networks, net counter of politeness

-For young people – social network users: creating a special group on social networks with a psychologist involved

-For software designers: computer game "Unknown City", computer game "Let's Say Compliments"

COUNTRY: Ukraine

6.TEAM: Nick Jordan (13), Julian Quispel (15), Richard Koetschruyter (17), Arthur Rump (15)

MENTOR: Pauline Maas

TITLE: Project Peer – a website where young people can talks about bullying and report bullying behavior

COUNTRY: The Netherlands