A heartbreaking video (below) showing the effects of bullying on an 8-year-old girl has gone viral.
Anna Cymbaluk, a third-grader from Minnesota, started an anti-bullying campaign with her family after a video showing her reaction to being bullied went viral.
Anna’s mother, Sarah Cymbaluk, uploaded the video to her Facebook page in May and within 24 hours, it had been shared more than 10,000 times, the NY Daily News reports. The mother told NY Daily News that she shared the video because she was fed up with her daughter’s school, Magelssen Elementary School in Fosston, Minnesota, doing nothing about the bullying problem.
“I want to feel like I’m wanted in the school, like people like me,” Anna tells her mom, sobbing.
Sarah said that her children were bullied for months before the video was filmed.
Anna tells her mother in the video that she had gone to the principal to report the bullying about five times already and that the school has done nothing to remedy the situation.
The school district’s superintendent, Mark Nohner, told KXJB that the bullying was not brought to his attention until the video was shared, according to CBS News. After the video went viral, Sarah and Jon Cymbaluk met with school administrators, the Daily News notes. The parents said the meeting yielded no results.
In response to the school’s lack of action, the Cymbaluk family started an anti-bullying campaign called, “Orange You Glad You Aren’t A Bully?” Anna came up with the name herself. The family encouraged people to wear Anna’s favorite color, orange, on her birthday, May 13.
“From the day she was born, she’s been a goer and a doer, a mover and a shaker,” Sarah told NY Daily News about her daughter.
The proud mother said that her daughter’s campaign was intended to let other bullying victims know that they are not alone.