Natural Day
High school senior Sanah Jivani was first diagnosed with Alopecia at the age of three. As a result, she lost most of her hair in different areas of her head. By seventh grade all of her hair was gone. She was devastated by this and tried to cover her hair loss by wearing a wig. But soon enough her classmates found out and she quickly became the target of schoolyard and online bullies. Someone even created a "Sanah BurnPage" on Facebook. By the start of her freshmen year, she had had enough:
"A week before my freshman year began, I ditched my wig. My hands trembled as I posted a video on Facebook telling my story. I didn't know what to expect. At first, I honestly thought the world might end. I honestly thought my friends would stop being my friends and my relatives would be so ashamed that they wouldn't want to associate with me. I honestly thought what I was doing was dumb, but I did it anyway. I did it because I couldn't handle hiding who I was for a second longer. I did it because I wanted to share my story, even if my voice was shaking. I did it for me, and no one else. The moment I clicked 'post,' I was set free. Tears filled my eyes and panic filled my hearts moments afterwards, but I didn't regret it one bit. I knew that this was the first step to loving myself completely. I knew that this fifteen seconds of insane courage would change everything. Most importantly, I knew I no longer was going to hide, and a huge burden was suddenly lifted off my chest."
Sanah took this experience even farther by partnering with her best friend to start "Natural Day" at her school. They intentionally chose February 13th (the day before Valentines Day) to highlight the important of being able to "love yourself before you can love others." "Everybody has a 'wig' whether it is their hair, make-up, or something deeper than physical, such as a past story that haunts them. Natural Day is about letting go of all of that. It's about being free, and learning to love yourself the way I learned to love myself. And that's exactly what I wanted for the students of my high school." Today Natural Day is celebrated in schools all around the world!
My story begins when a mother of one of my daughter's friends called me concerning two girls bullying our daughters at school. She began to explain that other girls have said that there was stuff written about her daughter on MySpace, and since she had no internet, she asked if I could investigate. When I went into the MySpace pages and started to read some things, I discovered that this one girls (one who bully's) had written about killing my daughter! I copied all of this right away so I could be armed with the information when I took it to the police station! They didn`t make a report. They sent me to the school and now the wheels are in action (I hope) for something to be done to punish these girls. I need some information on the cyber bulling law (if there is one) so I my plan my next step of action. I feel this girl should be punished for threatening my daughter's life. This is NOT a case of "girls just being girls"!!! I need to know what to do and where to go from here.
Mother from US