Kindness: The ultimate rebellion against bullying | Lucy Thomas | TEDxUNSW

After cofounding PROJECT ROCKIT, Australia’s youth driven movement against bullying, hate and prejudice, Lucy Thomas' model of kindness was shattered when she encountered her own experience of brutal homophobic bullying by somebody she loved. Lucy shares her story of how she rebuilt her life by remodelling her view of kindness as a tough and turbulent but powerful discipline for all of us to blunder at and stumble through everyday. Growing up, Lucy Thomas always figured that “someone should really do something about bullying.” Then she realised: I am that someone. As one of two sisters who cofounded PROJECT ROCKIT, Australia’s youth driven movement against bullying, hate and prejudice, Lucy has dedicated her whole life to the cause.
After building her career around tackling bullying, Lucy’s life was fundamentally changed when she herself became the target of an extended pattern of homophobic bullying in adulthood. Instead of hiding away, Lucy took this as an opportunity to connect with even young Aussies and launch herself into advocating for the LGBTI community. She first shared her story with thousands of high school students at the National Young Leaders Day at Olympic Park in Sydney and is now Deputy Chair of the board at Minus18, Australia’s largest youth led org supporting LGBTI young people. She made global headlines last year when a recording of Lucy standing up to a homophobic Uber driver went viral. In 2014, she was named as one of 12 Global Champions for Children’s Rights in the Digital Age by UNICEF and in 2015, she was a Finalist for LGBTI Person of the Year in the GLOBE Awards.
Lucy is a graduate of the University of Melbourne with both Graduate and Postgraduate Diplomas in Psychology, as well as a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Hons). Her creative and socially conscious background, together with this solid grounding in psychology and youth development has equipped Lucy with the precious ability to engage young people to generate self-awareness, growth and positive social change. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx

[@rosechiku5911]

'The ultimate active rebellion against bullying is survival'--so powerful 👏🏽

[@howardcohen6817]

Great talk, Lucy. Kindness doesn't behave in a causal way, I don't think. Kindness and kind thoughts and actions contribute to the kindness-climate and compound themselves exponentially.
While taking a break outside the museum-café in Cologne one warm day about 30 years ago, someone approached my table selling post-cards. "Do you write?", she asked me. Haltingly I stuttered out, "Of course, I do." "Then please buy a few postcards and send some kindness into the world," she suggested. "A kind word never gets lost." As I am telling you this story, today, this is obviously true.

[@laurenpannell7367]

"survival of the ideas that drive you"... beautifully said Lucy XX

[@cairosilver2932]

'Do you know who I am?' reminds me of the title of the Dr Ramani book 'Don't you know who I am?', as it's a book about narcissism and that's one of phrases they will say.

[@harrissteven12358]

These people get a kick from bullying well news ya don't impress like Shania twain