Wests Tigers players joined with the National Rugby League to promote the month-long 2014 Community Carnival throughout schools in South-West Sydney on Monday.
Splitting up into groups and joining with NRL Development staff, over 30 players from NRL, NYC and NSW Cup squads spoke to assemblies and classes from over 20 different schools in the greater Camden area about bullying in both primary and high schools.
Speaking at his former primary school St. Paul’s Camden, fullback James Tedesco said that bullying continues to cause long-lasting problems in schools and needs to be addressed with action from students, teachers and parents alike.
“It’s a very important issue,” said Tedesco. “It happens all the time these days and we want to get it out of schools so that’s our job — to come out here and relay the message that bullying is not fun and nobody likes being bullied.”
The Wests Tigers Rookie of the Year for 2013 also reiterated that the biggest key to help tackle bullying was to not be a bystander when it might be happening — be that physical bullying, emotional bullying or even cyber-bullying.
Captain Robbie Farah, Chris Lawrence, Luke Brooks, Mitch Moses and Tim Simona will speak with local community leaders in the Campbelltown area on Monday night.
The squad will again speaking throughout more local schools in the area on Tuesday.
In total, the squad will address and interact with over 20,000 kids from ages 4-18 as part of the NRL’s “Tackle Bullying” campaign, which aims to make a positive difference in the community by speaking out about on issues of social significance such as bullying.
