Pink is the new black!

April 14th will see Aotearoa's biggest Pink Shirt Day campaign yet, with local businesses and youth groups launching into action.

Pink Shirt Day is an international campaign aimed at reducing bullying in our schools, last year over 160,000 people on Facebook signed up for the event globally. It started in Canada in 2008 when two 17 year old high school students decided to stand up for a friend who had been harassed for wearing a pink shirt to school. The boys, David Shepherd and Travis Price, decided that the bullying had to stop. They went to a discount store and bought 50 pink tank tops, sent out a message to schoolmates that night, and the next morning handed them to the students to wear. When the bullied boy walked in, according to Travis Price, it looked like a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders.

GET INVOLVED!

You can take part in this campaign in heaps of different ways:

Wear Pink on April 14th! Wearing something pink will symbolise that you do not tolerate bullying anywhere. This could be a shirt, a hat, a scarf, glasses, socks... anythings that shows you're standing alongside the campaign.
Write a Letter! The cool kids over at PinkShirtDay.org.nz, alongside Rainbow Youth and Q-Youth have come up with an awesome letter writing campaign. They're aiming to send 1000 submissions to parliament and they're seeking personal stories and people willing to submit their names to improve the safety in our schools and help promote the development of policy that supports students, teachers and whanau to stop bullying.
Buy a T-Shirt and Support Queer Youth in New Zealand: Mr. Vintage has made an exciting new T-shirt design just for Pink Shirt Day. and they're going on sale on at http://www.mrvintage.co.nz on April 1st. The best thing about it is that they've offered to donate 25% of the retail cost to Rainbow Youth!! So not only do you get a funky tee especially designed for this years Pink Shirt Day but you also get to donate some money to Rainbow Youth!
In Auckland? Eat Ice Cream!! Giapo is going to be serving Pink Ice Cream on the day and it'll be called: "Stop Bullying, Eat Pink" and the staff are all going to be wearing the Mr Vintage Pink Shirt Day Tees.
Get Your Local Youth Group in on the Action: Contact your local queer youth group and see what they've got planned. If they haven't got anything in the works yet get out your thinking caps and organise something yourself! It could be a pink shirt washing line, or pink cupcake drive, it could even be an all-pink-picnic-potluck!
Spread the Word: Print out a copy of the poster below (email us or comment for a higher resolution image), put it up in schools and offices, and convince teachers to participate in the event!