The imagination and creative capabilities of children never cease to amaze me.
Jonah Maxwell moved from Killiney to Chicago in 2011 with mum Jenny, dad Dave and brother Danny when he was 7 years old.
The transition was a big one for the whole family but Jonah says he experienced some bullying at his new school because he was ‘The New Kid’.
Now 12, he has channelled his experience into art and over the past 7 months has been making an amazing short film with his school mates all on the subject of bullying – which Jonah has written and directed himself.
Currently viewed over 80k times on YouTube, ‘The Bully’ talks about what bullying is really like for school-going kids in 2016 who, because of the power of social media, now suffer at the hands of bullies 24/7.
Jonah says that the bullying he first experienced only lasted a short time because he told his parents what was happening, and his film strongly urges any kids who are experiencing bullying to do the same.
His advice to anyone who is being bullied is to try everything possible to ignore the bully in the hope that they will get bored and eventually stop. And if they don’t stop, Jonah says you must ‘tell’ instead.
Jonah’s next project in the pipeline is a music video for his school and his dream is to study film at North Western University.
We wish this amazing 12-year-old boy all the success in the world and we’ll be watching out for him!
You can view the full video here:
