T-Shirts Against Bullying: Please read.

thecaveman

Hi fellow MSEers,
Once a victim of bullying myself, I remember feeling incredibly alone and like I had nobody else to talk to – sure I had a school counselor and my family but I wasn’t able to completely relate to them. I identified a huge gap in the market for a peer-to-peer support community and organisation that was about connecting young people with other young people in a way that provided community and complete freedom of expression. Alas, my Ditch the Label charity was born.

Now aged 22, I have huge growth ambitions and plans for Ditch the Label. We are currently a team of 6 unpaid professionals, each contributing as much time as possible towards scaling and building up our charity so that we can continue to expand our outreach. Our current activities include:

• The largest bullying research sample in the world called The Annual Bullying Survey.
• An online peer-to-peer support community with over 34,000 members.
• Anti-bullying initiatives and campaigns that are produced for British schools and colleges. So far we have worked with 12 different establishments.
• Advice guides that are freely and discretely available on our website for young people – focusing on topical issues such as mental health, homophobia, racism and cyber-bullying.

Whilst our current projects are producing amazing impact, it is just a small drop in a huge ocean and we need your help to be able to grow and help even more young people.

In the near future, some of our planned projects and activities include:

• Work experience and creative projects for young people.
• Greater outreach projects into more schools, colleges and communities.
• A smart phone application to provide instant help and advice to young people.
• An online counseling service.
• A robust peer advocacy program that will provide young people with the confidence and skills to be able to help others.

We have just launched an IndieGoGo crowdsourcing pitch to help us fund the production of a Ditch the Label t-shirt range, with all profits going back into our charity, creating a sustainable and independent funding stream.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with crowdsourcing, it is essentially a platform that organisations use to raise funds for a particular project - in return for contributing funding, you will receive a perk of your choice, such as a t-shirt, wristband or we can even run an anti-bullying campaign in a school or college of your choice.

We have 25 days left to raise £2,802 - even if you are only able to throw in £5 or share the campaign on your Facebook/Twitter, it would be an amazing help.

To find out more and to help fund the future of our charity, please visit:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/t-shirts-against-bullying-ditch-the-label-anti-bullying-charity/x/939603

Thank you so, so much for your time,

Liam