Riječi (ne) bole?! – Words (don’t) hurt?!

Last week, Dasha Gajic (we featured her work here) contacted me to submit her photos about a project that is very dear to her heart. A campaign against bullying.

Please share the word, because bullying is still way too often ignored and not talked about enough. So many people suffer in silence from this and it has to stop. People need to be educated about the consequences and how it can affect one’s life forever.

“In September 2015, the campaign “Riječi (ne) bole?!” (“Words (don’t) hurt?!”) was launched with the idea to address the issues of verbal violence and bullying through street style photographs. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there were many campaigns about physical violence, but verbal violence was and still is under rug swept, even though many young people in this country were or still are the victims of verbal violence and bullying on a daily basis.

“Riječi (ne) bole?!” is more than a photography project or campaign. We want to create a community and a platform for open dialogue about verbal violence, hate speech and bullying.

At the moment, the campaign has around 100 ambassadors (mainly young people from different backgrounds). Our aim is to gain even more ambassadors (from students to public figures) in order to raise awareness about verbal violence, to express our support to victims and to show them that they aren’t alone. One of the aims of this campaign is to motivate young people to believe in themselves and their dreams no matter what kind of difficulties they are experiencing. Also we want to encourage young people to speak about verbal violence and bullying with their parents, family members, teachers, professors, etc…”