By Brendan Rees
African-born Eric Agyeman spent years “finding place where I know who I am” after being tormented by bullies at school.
It didn’t come easy. At the age of 10, while attending a South East school, the inspirational speaker recalled hearing remarks of “because of the colour of your skin will never be able to achieve anything in life.”
Despite the student being expelled Eric says for the next three years of his life – “his words were still present in my mind.”
“It had my own voice to it because I had believed what he had told me,” he said.
Today Eric is the founder of School Revival, a movement in high schools building resilience in young people through transformational workshops.
He was a guest speaker to 330 Year 7 students at Narre Warren South P-12 College on Friday 17 May where he delivered an anti-bullying and resilience workshop.
Growing up, Eric told the students he would hate being in groups “because I would fear what someone else would say to me.”
“There’s so many young people like myself that would go home and close the doors, wanting to cry because of what they has to endure at school,” he said.
“Words are so powerful. In fact words kill more people than bullets do.
“Words kill people’s self-esteem, they kill people’s sense of confidence, they kill people’s sense of creativity; in the classroom they kill people’s ability to raise their hand to answer a question,” he said.
Eric, who is the author of three best-selling books and the winner of the 2016 African Australian Community leader of the year award, went through difficult experiences growing up as a migrant, feeling isolated and suffering bouts of depression.
“What I have realised in life – it’s not what people call you that matters but it’s what you answer to,” he said.
“In life you don’t control another person’s mouth, you don’t control what comes out of another person but what you can control is how you can respond to that.”
He also spoke about failure being “an event and never a person.”
“There are so many things that you will go through in life – job interviews, relationships, tests, examinations and not all of them you will pass with flying colours.
“In those moments don’t label yourself by the results of what you’re going through.”
He added: “Let’s be a year level that allows failure to refine us – not define us.”
Year 7 team leader Luke Wilson said Eric’s message was highly motivating for students.
“We know this is great school but we think we can make it even better by students identifying that the way they speak to each other can make this place a better environment,” he said.
For more information about Eric’s workshops visit: www.ericagyeman.com.
