Two years ago Monica Lewinsky ended a decade of silence with her first public appearance at the inaugural Forbes Under 30 Summit in Philadelphia. In a candid speech that quickly went viral, she confronted her legacy as the mistress of President Bill Clinton and declared herself “Patient Zero,” the first person to have her reputation “destroyed worldwide via the Internet.”
Lewinsky returned to the Under 30 Summit the following year to introduce her solution: #BeStrong Anti-Bullying Emojis for Support. The free third party keyboard, developed by Vodafone in conjunction with teens across 11 countries, provides a simple way for teens to show their support for victims of bullying.
“In the survey of over 5,000 teens around the globe, it was consistently shown that finding the right words to use when they witnessed bullying, was challenging,” explains Lewinsky. “Sending an emoji solves that dilemma.”
One of the 1,500-plus millennials in the audience that day was Michael Levine, who runs locally sourced school food company Global Food Solutions.
“Once I saw her present, ideas immediately started to race,” said Levine. “It kind of struck a nerve… taking a step back and looking at our program, it seemed like a natural fit.”
He approached her at an evening event (“near the Bon Bon Bon chocolates of which I ate too many,” according to Lewinsky) to find a way to integrate the emoji campaign into his existing New York City school program that serves approximately 1.3 million students from kindergarten through high school across all five boroughs.
“For us, it was a really great way to get involved in a larger discussion,” explained Levine. “It’s about breaking the stigma as well as opening the discussion that cyberbullying is not okay.”
The #BeStrong packaging has been slowly rolling out across the New York City School District, the largest district in America. The team plans to monitor reactions to the campaign before launching nationwide across all of Global Food Solutions’ school districts.
Even with the campaign well under its way, Levine is still a bit in shock that this partnership came out of attending the summit.
Lewinsky continues to look to the future of the anti bullying movement as she travels the world as an ambassador for Bystander Revolution and The Diana Award’s Anti Bullying Program. She also suggested that she remains grateful for the summit's receptive audience and the partnership that came out of it.
"To have the #BeStrong emojis on the school food packaging means that kids will be continuously reminded that there is a tool out there to help support their peers when they see bullying behavior," said Lewinsky.