A 12-Year-Old Girl Started A Petition To Try To Stop Her Bullies

    "School bullying is killing me, PLEASE, PLEASE HELP."

    Gyan Yankovich
    by Gyan Yankovich

    Lifestyle Editor, Australia

    Tayla Sekhmet is a year 7 student at Dysart State High School in Queensland. Earlier this week, she started a petition begging her school to take a stronger stance against bullying after she was harassed by kids who filmed themselves throwing their lunch at her and threatened to put it on Facebook.

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    "I'm the most unpopular kid at school and people make my life a living hell," Tayla wrote in the petition, which already has 43,000 signatures. "Every day people call me fatso, weirdo, ugly, freak, and tell me I should kill myself. I've been pushed to the ground, had people go through my bag, or break my scooter when I rode it to school. Even people in other grades who I don't know do these things to me too."

    In the letter, Tayla explains that the advice from teachers has always been to "just ignore these people".

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    "She came home saying she wanted to throw herself under a car because everyone on the internet was going to see her crying. She said she'd rather die," Kali told BuzzFeed. "I’ve talked to the principal, I’ve talked to the teachers. She’s come home crying nearly every day and I can’t deal with it."

    Since the petition, Kali said the school has finally taken action, allowing Tayla access to a private room where she can read, relax, and listen to music at recess and lunch.

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    "At the moment, the best the school can do in these situations is isolate the students so they don't get hurt more, but that's still not good enough," said Kali, who hopes the school and Queensland minister for education, Kate Jones, will see the petition and take action.

    Other students have also found Tayla at school to talk about their own struggles with bullying, inviting her to sit with them between classes.

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    Tayla has also been printing positive online comments and sticking them up on her bedroom walls, to remind herself how many people actually care.

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    Since the petition gained attention Tayla has "been on top of the world".

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    "I’m happy we can finally take a breath," says Kali. "But last night all I could do was think about all the other kids that are out there suffering. We have to change the school policies for dealing with bullying, because at the moment they just don’t work."

    BuzzFeed has reached out to Dysart State High School and Kate Jones for comment.