Acclaimed Waitt Institute Supported Film “Bully” Opens in Theaters
 Lee Hirsch's "Bully" “Bully”, Lee Hirsch’s moving and powerful documentary about five families struggling with the challenges and heartbreak of bullying, opens March 30 in theaters. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York to an overwhelming audience response, and was picked up for distribution by the next day by the Academy Award winning team at The Weinstein Company. Since then, the film has shown at countless major film festivals to much acclaim, some great awards, and even more important, a rousing audience response, both in the United States and internationally.
Waitt Institute has been working with the filmmaker, providing multiple forms of support since 2007. More on the overall “Bully” program and Waitt Institute here.
WIVP and Futures Hold National Engaging Men Conference “The Y factor” April, 2012 in San Francisco
WIVP, Futures without Violence, and Clinton Global Initiative Commit to Move “Engaging Men and Boys” Strategy to the Next level
 Cindy Waitt with Bill Clinton The Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention has announced their newest commitment as participants in the 2011 Clinton Global Initiative. Inspired by former President Bill Clinton’s work building partnerships that result in creative and measurable solutions to global challenges, the Waitt Institute will expand the work of “Coaching Boys into Men,” an innovative campaign that provides strategies and resources to engage men and boys to prevent violence against women and girls.
The new commitment is a national summit called The Y Factor” to be help April 12 at Futures headquarters at the Presidio in San Francisco to bring together both experienced voices in the men’s movement and communities beginning to engage men and boys and share their valuable knowledge. Leaders in the movement such as MVP’s Jackson Katz, Men Can Stop Rape’s Neil Irvin, Call to Men leaders Ted Bunch and Tony Porter will join longtime supporter Ted Waitt and baseball legends Joe Torre and Willie Mays to showcase their work and come up with creative solutions to move the work to the next level. |
The Back Story: WIVP Meets Lee Hirsch and Connects Him to Sioux City Schools
 at the beginning... When Lee Hirsch contacted Cindy Waitt and Alan Heisterkamp in the spring of 2009, he was still in pre-production of what was then called “The Bully Project”.
Lee’s original treatment was, at that time, a look at school bullying in the context of the larger culture. He wanted to explore the horrors our children face each day across the country, while exploring other types of bullying that happen in the adult world, and what that meant for the 3 million kids who are bullied each year.
Lee heard about WIVP through Drs. Gary and Ruth Namie, of the Workplace Bullying Institute. The Namie’s were partners and sponsors, with us of the first workplace national bullying survey done by Zogby in 2007. We extended our partnership with the Namie’s in 2009, when our pilot and home community, implemented the first national adult to adult bullying program in the Sioux City Community School District, and that’s when Lee heard about our decade long commitment to violence and bullying prevention, in partnership with the district.
Lee and Cynthia visited us in the summer of 2009, and after an introduction by us to the Sioux City School Board and Superintendent Dr. Paul Gausman, received permission to actually film inside the schools. They filmed actual interventions happening, kids talking about school climate, and various activities connected with the districts 10 plus years of gradual implementation of bullying and violence prevention programming in all schools k-12.
Education consultant Dr. Alan Heisterkamp’s strategy was to show the film makers through 3 schools at 3 different stages of development in the district’s implementation of violence prevention programs. The high school where they gathered footage over a year’s time was our pilot school and had been actively programming with “Mentors in Violence Prevention” for nearly 10 years. Lee and Cynthia have both remarked on the positive culture of the pilot school and were able to capture footage of both kids and school staff discussing violence and bullying and working through interventions. The middle school where the story of Alex Libby was filmed had barely begun implementation of the Second Step curriculum when the filming occured in 2009.
For more information on the results of our 4 year study on a district in motion, see the Sioux City Project .
Finding Alex Libby and Telling His Story
While filming in the 2009-2010 school year, they were drawn to a student, Alex Libby, who they suspected was being bullied and throughout they followed Alex through his day. What surfaced was a heartbreaking portrait of a young man who faced brutal bullying daily. The cameras rolled in Alex’s home and school as we watch him, his family, and school staff struggle with what should never happen to any child. Alex’s story became a central part of the five stories from Georgia, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Iowa that make up the film.
Supporters Join the Movement
The Institute became the first major funder for “Bully” in December of 2009, and fortunately were joined by a fantastic group of supporters including The BeCause Foundation, The Einhorn Family Charitable Trust, and the Fledgling Fund. This team went on to not only help fund the film, but also the vital outreach program. The Bully Team now includes many other funders and supporters, who will help get this film, Facing History’s curriculum, and the movement behind it from coast to coast…and then some.
How You Can Get Behind the “Bully” Film and Movement
For more information about “Bully” and the “Bully Project” movement , go to thebullyproject.com . |
