BARBADOS TODAY – AUTHORITIES have enlisted a smartphone app in a crackdown on bullying and other deviant behaviour among the island’s children.
The app, called the SafeZone, Report It App, allows learners and members of the public to send anonymous reports of problems to relevant school authorities.
The app, a partnership between the Ministry of Education, Supreme Counselling for Personal Development and the Maria Holder Trust, is available for download for Android and Apple phones.
At its launch at Hilton Barbados Monday morning, Chief Executive Officer of Supreme Counselling, Shawn Clarke, highlighted the features of the app that will be beneficial to learners and administrators, especially the option for anonymity.

He declared: “This is one of the app’s most compelling features. It removes the main factors that deter students and other members of society from reporting bullying incidents and other negative behaviours displayed by our students.
“In some instances, students are often afraid that the culprits might discover their identity and victimise them. Sometimes persons do not know the appropriate authority figure to turn to or may be worried that authorities may not keep their identity a secret from the culprit. The SafeZone, Report It app anonymity feature bypasses all such hurdles, ensuring that persons report violence, delinquency, misbehaviour, self-harm or bullying without reserve.”
Clarke added that the incidents reported through the SafeZone, Report It app will be automatically stored as records for the reference of administrators.
“The application also provides administrators with vital statistics, which could help them implement measures to reduce bullying or dangerous behaviour,” he explained.

Education Minister Santia Bradshaw has endorsed the app, stressing it was imperative that as children return to in-person classes, everything must be done to ensure that schools are safe.
She suggested the technology had the potential to not only help administrators identify the children who need help and provide early intervention, but it could help reverse troubling practices.
Bradshaw said: “Therefore, we have the potential with the app and all the other programmes we are instituting in our schools to be able to change the culture of what young people are listening to in their music, what they are saying to each other in their discourse and to be able to start to change the narrative, because in the absence of having the positive information being put out there, I can stand here and say to you there is a void out there especially with young people listening to a number of the popular lyrics, which are influencing them to keep quiet about things they need to speak up about .”

The Education Minister said she is also hoping that the smart app will disrupt the culture of insufficient formal reporting and lead to a more engaged society that will accept responsibility for steering youth in the right direction.
She said: “We like to talk about what is happening; we will share the video of our young people and hope something is done, but often times we don’t like to actually put pen to paper or report something or even to send information to the relevant authorities.
“Now that the public has an opportunity to participate, it is a reminder to them it not just about the students or the principals or the schools or the Ministry of Education intervening in what we see sometimes our young people going down the wrong road,
“I think Barbadians have lost sight of being their brothers’ and sisters’ keeper… more now than ever we have to look out for the persons that will become the future of this country.”