Meet the Photographer and 15 kids who declared an Infinity War on bullying

Photographer Josh Rossi spent three months working on a photo project with 15 children who have been severely bullied, and turned them into The “Avengers of Bullying”.

Bullying Victims Turned Into Avengers For Empowering Photoshoot

After recently seeing the trailer for the new Avenger’s movie, Photographer Josh Rossi and his wife Roxana were inspired to bring bullied children together to provide a platform where their voices could be heard. In the movie, the bully of the universe, Thanos, comes to take over the world, but the Avengers unite to destroy him. Similar to bullying — if we unite against it, we can stop it.

The Avengers of Bullying: from the studio that brought you The Justice League Kids

In the latest Marvel movie, Avengers: Infinity War, the bully of the universe, Thanos, comes to take over the world, but the Avengers unite to destroy him. Each Avenger has unique differences and strengths ranging from green and purple skin to being able to stop time. 

Without each superhero’s individual strength and power, their efforts to defeat Thanos will be unsuccessful. The same with bullying — if we unite against it, we can stop it.

After recently finishing the Justice League Kids series, photographer Josh Rossi and his wife Roxana were contacted by the social media app Vero who offered to help them with any future projects they had. The Rossis told them about the bully project and they were in! 

One day as as Rossi was thinking about the project, he came across a video of Jackson Bezzant’s dad. 

Jackson was born with facial deformities and had been called ‘monster’ and ‘freak’ at school because of them. Jackson’s dad made a video explaining his sons situation and in a way was reaching out for help. 

‘As I was watching, I felt as though he were speaking directly to me. I immediately messaged him on social media and told him I was doing a new project on bullying and wanted his son to be part of it.’ — Rossi writes in the Fulltime Photographer

‘In reality I hadn’t set anything up yet and the project was all just in my head. The video was so powerful, however, that it sparked a fire in me to help in whatever way I could. Jackson Bezzant would soon become the Captain America of this amazing group of kids.’ 

To see the full amazing gallery and read the individual stories of bullying each of these superheroes endured, you can find their bios in this blog post by Rossi.

Source: FulltimePhotographer

11 sobering stats on bullying in America

DoSomething.org is a global movement of 6 million young people making positive change, online and off. Here are 11 sobering statistics they collected;

• Over 3.2 million students are victims of bullying each year.
• Approximately 160,000 teens skip school every day because of bullying.
• 17% of American students report being bullied 2 to 3 times a month or more within a school semester. Take a stand in your community by hosting a Bullying Policy Makeover event customizing your school’s anti-bullying policy.
• 1 in 4 teachers see nothing wrong with bullying and will only intervene 4% of the time.
• By age 14 less than 30% of boys and 40% of girls will talk to their peers about bullying.
• Over 67% of students believe that schools respond poorly to bullying, with a high percentage of students believing that adult help is infrequent and ineffective.
• 71% of students report incidents of bullying as a problem at their school.
• 90% of 4th through 8th graders report being victims of bullying.
• 1 in 10 students drop out of school because of repeated bullying.
• As boys age they are less and less likely to feel sympathy for victims of bullying. In fact they are more likely to add to the problem than solve it.
• Physical bullying increases in elementary school, peaks in middle school and declines in high school. Verbal abuse, on the other hand, remains constant.