MAY 2
WORLD DAY AGAINST BULLYING.
The story behind a date that was born at a desk, alone in the early hours of the morning
GENEVA — World Bullying Without Borders Organization
Some dates are born after years of deliberations, conferences, votes and treaties.
And then there are others that are born from an idea.
May 2, World Bullying Day, belongs to this second story.
Its origins can be traced back to a work desk, between April 30 and May 1, 2013, when Dr. Javier Miglino, founder of Bullying Without Borders, was searching for an answer for millions of children and adolescents suffering from bullying in different parts of the world.
There was no grand ceremony.
There was no government behind it.
There was no international structure in place.
There were papers, meetings, concern, exhaustion and a question that was becoming increasingly difficult to answer:
How can we protect every child in the world from bullying?
The answer would eventually become a worldwide observance.
THE BEGINNING
Bullying Without Borders was formally established on May 2, 2012, by Dr. Javier Miglino, an Argentine lawyer and specialist in Human Rights and child protection.
Part of his professional career had taken place in Paris, France, where he worked alongside organizations involved in Human Rights and assistance to refugee families.
That experience gave him a close look at the suffering of families who had been forced to leave their homes and, especially, that of children and adolescents.
Upon returning to Argentina, Miglino assembled an interdisciplinary professional team and began working on a problem that, in his view, lacked an adequate international institutional response:
BULLYING.
“We will create an organization that brings help to every school in the world, which is why it will have no borders. It will be called: Bullying Without Borders,” Miglino said.
The organization grew.
Collaborators arrived from different countries.
Testimonies arrived.
Requests for help arrived.
And as social media grew, cases of cyberbullying also began to multiply.
Violence was no longer limited to schoolyards and classrooms.
It had begun to travel across the internet.
A QUESTION THAT COULD NOT WAIT
During international meetings of the Bullying Without Borders team of specialists, a growing concern emerged.
Children and adolescents needed help.
But the solutions always seemed far too slow.
Miglino recalls one of those discussions:
“Gentlemen: this is unacceptable. Every day that passes, children and adolescents are dying everywhere in the world. We cannot wait six months.”
And he raised a question that would become one of the central phrases of that story:
“What would happen if your son or daughter suffered bullying to the point that their life was in danger? Would you also ask for six months before helping them?”
The answer did not yet exist.
But the search had begun.
APRIL 30, 2013: THE THREE POISONS
On April 30, 2013, Miglino was working alone in his office.
Then, through a window, he saw a mother reprimanding her son, a boy approximately eight years old.
The boy was being harassed by other children.
The mother told him to be strong, to confront those who were bullying him and not to allow himself to be intimidated.
She even told him:
“Bullying does not exist.”
That scene led to a decisive reflection.
The child suffering from bullying was alone.
Perhaps no one believed him.
Perhaps no one knew how to help him.
Even his parents might feel powerless.
There appeared the first concept:
LONELINESS.
Then came the second.
The bullied child was not happy.
The anguish could stay with him throughout the day and throughout the night.
He might sleep badly.
He might stop eating.
He might begin to lose his sense of the meaning of his own life.
SADNESS.
And finally came the third.
The child might be afraid to tell anyone what was happening.
He might fear being scolded, reprimanded or humiliated.
And he knew that the next day his aggressors might return.
FEAR.
Miglino had found what he was looking for.
According to his formulation:
“Bullying feeds on three poisons: loneliness, sadness and fear.”
And then the answer also emerged:
“Where there is loneliness, there must be friends.
Where there is sadness, there must be joy.
Where there is fear, there must be friends; joyful, strong, brave and powerful.”
Alongside this idea, two slogans were formulated that would become part of the identity of Bullying Without Borders:
“Bullying is a problem among children that adults must solve.”
And:
“Bullying feeds on three poisons: loneliness, sadness and fear.”
THE IMPOSSIBLE QUESTION
There was still a need to find a way to reach every child.
The team's next international meeting was scheduled for Thursday, May 2, 2013.
But there was a problem.
How could they enter a classroom?
Doing so physically, without authorization, could lead to civil and criminal consequences.
And if one considered the hundreds of millions of classrooms that exist around the planet, the answer seemed impossible.
Years later, Miglino summarized it in a question:
“How can I make children and adolescents in India, Colombia, Spain, South Africa and Australia understand that we are facing a deadly enemy that can kill them?”
And he added:
“Children have to feel that there are friends in the world who embrace them, who love them and who are committed to protecting them. When they go to school, when they are at school and when they leave school.”
They had to find something capable of entering classrooms without physically crossing their doors.
Then came the memory of Mafalda.
MAFALDA AND THE IDEA THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
During his time in Paris, Miglino remembered the notebooks his son Javier brought home, which had been distributed free of charge by the Mairie de Paris to students.
On the back covers of those notebooks was Mafalda, the character created by Argentine cartoonist Joaquín Lavado, Quino.
That image triggered a decisive association.
An Argentine creation had managed to enter French classrooms.
It did not need permission to visit every school.
Its creator did not need to travel there.
It simply was there.
And everyone could see it.
Then the question arose:
What if there were something that could symbolically enter every classroom in every school in the world?
Something that could embrace children, accompany them and tell them that someone was thinking about them.
The answer began to take shape.
It would not be an object.
It would not be a person.
There would be no need to cross any door.
It would be a date.
A day of the year.
A day with a message.
A worldwide message.
A WORLD BULLYING DAY.
And then the date emerged:
MAY 2
MAY 1, 2013: THE EMOTION
Miglino later said that he was extremely fortunate to be completely alone when he wrote that sentence.
Because when he finished writing it, a few tears fell onto the paper.
The idea had been born.
But it was not yet worldwide.
That same May 1, 2013, he sent communications to more than 30,000 non-governmental organizations in different parts of the world to announce the creation of:
“May 2. World Bullying Day.”
Only 24 hours remained before the first celebration.
And then the response began.
THE WORLD RESPONDS
According to Miglino's account, approximately 60 seconds after he sent the first emails, a response arrived from South Korea.
Then others followed.
First, a few.
Then hundreds.
Then thousands.
Support came from Spain, France, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, the United States, Italy, Australia, South Africa, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark and Russia, among other countries.
Messages continued to arrive throughout the day.
The initiative began to travel.
The idea that had been born at a desk covered with papers was beginning to become an international reality.
MAY 2, 2013: THE BIRTH
May 2, 2013 arrived.
The computer remained on.
There were hundreds of messages.
Organizations from different parts of the world expressed their willingness to join the celebration.
And, according to the account, CNN and CNN en Español reported the news that day through journalist Carlos Montero:
“Today, May 2, is World Bullying Day.”
The date had begun its journey.
At that moment, the symbolic transformation Miglino had imagined also took place:
Friendship began to displace loneliness.
Joy began to overcome sadness.
Courage began to confront fear.
The idea no longer belonged to one person alone.
It was beginning to belong to everyone who chose to make it their own.
ORANGE
A symbol was also born.
The color chosen to represent the fight against bullying was orange.
For Bullying Without Borders, orange represents strength, joy, confidence, hope, perseverance and energy.
The organization decided to make it its flag.
ORANGE WOULD BE THE COLOR OF THE FIGHT AGAINST BULLYING.
THE ARRIVAL AT UNESCO
In 2016, the initiative reached UNESCO in Paris.
According to the institutional history of Bullying Without Borders, the proposal was considered exceptionally quickly and approved in less than 40 minutes.
The organization's account compares that speed with the history of other international observances, such as World Radio Day, whose process reportedly took decades.
From then on, Bullying Without Borders presented May 2 as one of the major international dates dedicated to raising awareness about bullying.
Subsequently, different parliaments and organizations from different countries joined the initiative.
SPAIN, 2017
On May 2, 2017, the Senate of Spain formally joined the initiative:
“May 2. World Bullying Day.”
Spain thus became institutionally part of the observance dedicated to the fight against bullying.
180 COUNTRIES
Over the years, the initiative continued to expand.
Bullying Without Borders maintains that since May 2, 2022, the observance has been present in 180 countries across the five continents.
The message began to adopt different names depending on the language:
World Bullying Day.
Journée Mondiale contre le Harcèlement.
One idea.
One date.
One fight.
AN OPEN-SOURCE DAY
From its beginning, World Bullying Day was conceived as a free and open observance.
It was not created to charge royalties.
It was not created to generate profits.
Its creator's stated intention was that no one should have to pay to celebrate it.
That a modest school could commemorate it just like a university.
That it could be observed in a major city or in a small community.
That bullying could be discussed in any language.
A DATE FOR EVERYONE.
WHAT THAT MAY 2 LEFT BEHIND
The response began to appear in classrooms.
Songs.
Drawings.
Poems.
Plays.
Debates.
Posters.
Conversations between teachers and students.
Parents who began asking questions.
Children who discovered they were not alone.
According to Bullying Without Borders, millions of testimonies from young people and families seeking help in situations involving bullying and cyberbullying arrived over the years.
The organization maintains that, over the years, it received more than 2 million testimonies from children and young people experiencing extreme situations involving bullying, thoughts of death, self-harm, dropping out of school or desires to seek retaliation.
For the organization, those testimonies are part of the reason why the date remains necessary.
THE THREE POISONS AND THEIR ANTIDOTES
The story always returns to the same point:
LONELINESS.
SADNESS.
FEAR.
In Miglino's formulation, these three elements can deepen the suffering of someone experiencing bullying.
But there is also a response to each one.
To loneliness:
FRIENDSHIP.
To sadness:
JOY AND SUPPORT.
To fear:
COURAGE AND PROTECTION.
That is why the battle is not only about punishing the aggressor.
It is also about preventing the victim from being left alone.
THE RIGHT TO LIFE
In his creator's view, the fight against bullying is linked to an even deeper issue:
THE HUMAN RIGHT TO LIFE.
Miglino expressed it this way:
“From today on, they will no longer say that loneliness, sadness and fear overcame that young person or that child. They will say that there were brave people who one day said: Enough of violence!”
And he added:
“Then, and only then, will we be able to say that we fought to protect the First Human Right, which is the Right to Life.”
The phrase summarizes the deepest meaning that the organization attributes to the date.
THE BATTLE CONTINUES
Bullying existed before May 2.
It exists after May 2.
And it has still not been defeated.
But something changed.
Now millions of people know its name.
Millions of students know that there is a day dedicated to fighting it.
Millions of teachers and families have a date on which to talk about the problem.
And millions of children can hear a message that, for someone experiencing bullying, can mean much more than a simple phrase:
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
THE MESSAGE FOR BULLIES
Bullying is not “kids being kids.”
It is not cleverness.
It is not a school tradition.
It is not a test that a child must endure in order to become stronger.
It is violence.
And when that violence continues online, it can become cyberbullying and extend throughout the 24 hours of the day.
That is why the fight must reach classrooms, homes and cyberspace as well.
The message is simple:
IT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
IT IS NOT TOLERABLE.
IT MUST NOT BE NORMALIZED.
THE SCENE HE IMAGINED
A child in Mexico arrives at school.
He looks at the blackboard.
And finds written:
MAY 2
WORLD BULLYING DAY
In Argentina, another student writes an essay.
In the United States, a school sings a song.
In Spain, a fair is organized.
In France, children make drawings.
In Italy, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Australia, China, South Africa or Senegal, teachers and students talk about bullying.
It does not matter if it is raining outside.
It does not matter if it is cold.
It does not matter whether it is day or night somewhere else on the planet.
That day carries one common message:
BULLYING IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
THE MIRACLE OF A DESK
The story began among papers.
It began with exhaustion.
It began with questions.
It began with a window.
It began with a mother and a child.
It began with the loneliness of a boy who was suffering.
And from that scene came an idea capable of crossing borders:
A DAY SO THAT CHILDREN WOULD KNOW THEY WERE NOT ALONE.
It was not born in a palace.
It was not born at an international summit.
It was not born behind a major institution.
IT WAS BORN AT A DESK.
A desk covered with papers.
A desk in a quiet room.
A desk facing a window.
A desk where someone wondered how to make a bullied child anywhere in the world feel that someone was on their side.
And then a date appeared.
MAY 2
WORLD BULLYING DAY
FINAL WORDS
“I had chosen May 2 of every year because it is a day when schools are in session in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, in the East and the West. An ordinary day to go to school.
I imagined then that a child in Mexico would arrive at school and see on the blackboard: ‘World Bullying Day.’
In Argentina, a student would write an essay against bullying.
In the United States, a song would be sung.
In Spain, there would be a fair.
In France, there would be drawings.
And in England, Italy, Germany, South Korea, Australia, Thailand, China, Japan, South Africa and Senegal, people would talk about bullying.
It would then be said that bullying is neither acceptable nor tolerable.
Together, we made it possible.”
Dr. Javier Miglino
Creator of May 2. World Bullying Day
EPILOGUE
Perhaps that is why the origin of May 2 retains something of a legend.
A date born from a concern.
A concern that became a question.
A question that became an idea.
An idea that became a call to action.
And a call to action that now travels around the world.
From that desk in April 2013 to the classrooms that return each year to remember the date, the message remains:
WHERE THERE IS LONELINESS, LET THERE BE FRIENDSHIP.
WHERE THERE IS SADNESS, LET THERE BE JOY.
WHERE THERE IS FEAR, LET THERE BE COURAGE.
Because bullying can exist.
It can change its form.
It can move from school to the telephone and from the telephone to social media.
But in the face of it, there is a human response that will break through borders:
We will listen to you, stand by you and protect you. You will not be alone.
That is how, according to the history of Bullying Without Borders, May 2. World Bullying Day was born.
Dr. Javier Miglino
Founder of Bullying Without Borders
Creator of May 2. World Bullying Day
