Bullying on the rise

Prevention and intervention

Long-term commitment

Chili makes an impact

Science

A matter of the heart

Novartis Sponsoring & Donations has been working closely with the Swiss Red Cross for many years. At the heart of this collaboration is the conflict training program chili, which is becoming increasingly important at a time when bullying is on the rise in schools.

Text by Patrick Tschan and Egecan Huesemoglu, photos by Laurids Jensen

Playful bullying with a clear goal: to prevent conflict.

Table of contents

Bullying on the rise

Prevention and intervention

Long-term commitment

Chili makes an impact

Published on 30/08/2021

The fourth-to-sixth-grade students in Lampenberg in the canton of Baselland are fully absorbed in their assignments. Teacher Tanja Brogli walks up and down between the desks, giving a hint here, asking a question there and briefly explaining the task again. At some point, as part of a role play, she puts a yellow piece of paper on the desk of a student, which reads: “Would you like to argue with me? Come to my desk and just throw something down.”

The girl smirks and waits a moment. Then she gets up, walks to Ms. Brogli’s desk and throws down some pencils and a stapler. The teacher immediately accuses the girl of throwing the things down on purpose. The girl counters: “I didn’t do it on purpose, it was an accident!” The teacher blusters: “That’s not true, you keep throwing things of mine on the floor! I’ve had it!”

The argument continues, while the rest of the class follows the dispute attentively, until one child intervenes: “Hey, stop it! Break it up!” The child fetches the so-called argument rope, placing the teacher at one end and the girl at the other of the string, trying to mediate. “What happened, Ms. Brogli?”

Tanja Brogli regularly interrupts her lessons with such short role plays to prevent bullying and violence. Many of us may have memories of similar situations from their own school days: A classmate – or even you yourself – is a little different. Maybe a little chubby, dressed out of fashion or considered an outsider because of the parents’ religious orientation or nationality.

From today’s adult perspective, these may often seem like trivialities, but they were enough to exclude classmates from the social fabric of the class. In the old days, there was no word for it. But in sum, the constant teasing, the exercise of verbal and psychological violence against individuals is today understood as bullying.

Often, those affected try to bottle up their anger and shame, so that parents and teachers do not realize until very late – in some cases even too late – what is going on.

Bullying on the rise

To prevent such incidents or intervene when necessary, the Swiss Red Cross has developed the chili conflict training program for elementary school students, which Ms. Brogli and many other teachers in Switzerland use.

The program, which has been in place since 1999, is more important than ever. A study commissioned by the OECD showed an overall increase in violence and bullying in European schools in 2018 compared to 2015, with Switzerland taking the top spot, followed by Italy and Austria.

The rise is also linked to digitization. Whereas in the past little notes were passed around during school hours on which defamatory remarks were exchanged, bad-mouthing others today happens via digital platforms such as Signal, Threema, Reddit, Instagram, TikTok or Facebook.

Offenses, slander or humiliation are visible to everyone, to the bully as well as to the victim. One post follows the other. Insulting pictures or films mocking the victim are shared. A fast-moving spiral begins, for which there is no dismissal bell to bring things to a close, no school closing time – a spiral invading the privacy of children and young people and from which the parental home no longer offers any protection.

Whereas 11 percent of Swiss teenagers said they had been made fun of at least a few times a month in 2015, the figure rose to 13 percent in 2018. The proportion of teens who claimed that mean rumors were spread about them increased from 7 to around 11 percent. The percentage of physical assaults doubled over the study period to 7 percent.

This trend is also reflected in the 2019 chili annual report. Although demand for prevention training decreased compared to 2018, 35 percent more interventions for conflict resolution were requested in cases of psychological and physical violence in schools.

Prevention and intervention

“About 10 percent of our work is intervention, 90 percent prevention,” says Stefan Mueller, service coordinator of chili and project manager at the Swiss Red Cross responsible for the national coordination of the conflict training program. “The program is modular and offers numerous exercise scenarios that can be played out to demonstrate how a conflict arises and how it can be resolved.”

Even though the conflict content has changed little since chili was founded more than 20 years ago, digital platforms have created a “completely different quality,” as Stefan Mueller puts it. “In the past, if you had a conflict at school, you went home and had some peace and quiet. If, on the other hand, you are bullied by classmates and the attacks pop up in a WhatsApp chat, you carry the tension with you 24/7, and you can’t get rid of it. You no longer get a break from it. That’s a striking difference.”

Chili, in which the children learn how to deal appropriately with bullying and exclusion, tries to remedy such situations. They learn what a conflict is, how to deal with their own feelings, how to listen, how to talk about it, and how to find solutions together.

Conflict management is also included. Role plays – as exemplified in Tanja Brogli’s class – are central to this. As a consequence, children realize how a conflict arises and what emotions it triggers – not only in the victims, but also in the perpetrators.

Long-term commitment

Novartis became involved in chili a few years back. Without sponsorship, the program would be difficult to maintain in this form, confirms Dorothea Bergler, Head of Corporate Partnerships at the Swiss Red Cross.

For Isabel Dalli, Head Sponsoring & Donations at Novartis, however, the partnership with chili is not just a financial pledge: It is a matter of the heart, but also an important part of the close collaboration between Novartis and the Swiss Red Cross, which started in 2013.

“What’s special about the partnership with the Swiss Red Cross is that we’re not only pursuing a long-term, Switzerland-based project with chili, but we’re also supporting the efforts of the Red Cross in crisis interventions abroad,” Dalli explains.

Among other projects, Novartis worked with the organization to help the Red Cross set up refugee camps in Bangladesh for the Rohingya who had fled Myanmar. Likewise, donations have been made for rescue efforts in Haiti, the Philippines, Syria and Beirut.

In addition to its commitment, Dalli’s Sponsoring & Donations team also pursues partnerships with numerous other organizations, such as the Swiss Youth Research and the Theodora Foundation, which primarily looks to entertain children in hospital care.

The company is also active in traditional sponsoring and is involved with local museums and sports clubs such as FC Basel and hockey club EV Zug. Furthermore, Isabel Dalli and her team were involved in efforts to mitigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, supporting Novartis to raise funds for distressed communities.

Chili makes an impact

For Dalli, it is already clear that the company intends to continue supporting the program in future: “Chili makes a major contribution to a more peaceful society,” Dalli says, adding that “this is important for us.”

But chili alone is not enough to change the situation in Swiss schools. Teachers are also challenged and must practice what they have learned again and again with the students.

“Of course, it’s not enough for the chili trainers to just do their job,” insists Tanja Brogli. “As teachers, we have to continue the preliminary work done by the chili coaches in the classroom. That’s why I regularly incorporate small exercises into the lessons. This way, everyone benefits.”

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