Editor's choice April 2011

April 2011 Balsall Heathan

Big Dave’s Buddies

For the last ten years Dave Gauder known more commonly as Big Dave by school pupils throughout the country has been giving anti-bullying talks and passing on useful advice and guidance. Along with his talks and as part of his campaign Big Dave demonstrates how belief in your self can help individuals achieve their goals and his visits often involve him pulling a double decker bus. Now with over 1000 bus pulls under his belt Dave used a recent visit to Tindal School to launch his new initiative entitled ‘Big Dave’s Buddies’.

When asked what he hoped to achieve through the new project Dave said, “It will break down so many barriers, postcodes, tagging, all of these silly things that are going on all over the country. It starts from silliness really; it’s like Chinese whispers. It’s been ten years that I have been involved in this work but we always wanted to take it to another level”.

Based on the use of mentors through a buddy system the initiative aims to tackle some of the wider problems associated with bullying such as anti-social behaviour.

Dave went on to say, “It was always Big Dave goes into a school and delivers the message and Big Dave is gone and that was it. But now we’ve got longevity and it’s working really well. It’s from primary school age right the way through to secondary. But the schools have really got to earn it”.

When asked about the future for of the project Dave said, “Hopefully what we are trying to put in place is a GCSE under citizenship and maybe a Princess Diana award as well”.

If you would like to find out more then visit www.bigdavesworld.co.uk.