About
Abby McDonald, Youth Speaker and Anti-Bullying Campaigner
How Abby can help you
Abby Marie McDonald is a passionate 16-year old advocate for the mental health of youth in schools. She has seen and experienced the impact bullying has on young people and her mission is to break the taboo around the topic.
She knows that until people are willing to talk about it, bullying will be an ongoing problem in schools. She reaches out to our youth and our schools to help fight bullying and open a pathway to a solution for all the youth who suffer in silence.
By speaking to youth in schools, she shows them what bullying looks like because it isn’t always obvious. She teaches them how to stop bullying when they see it by standing up for what’s right. Importantly, she shows there is a solution and a way to recover after being bullied.
Nobody can help young people take care of their mental health like another young person. That’s what Abby does. She cares for your young people and helps them survive.
Abby’s story
Badly bullied as a school child, Abby eventually gave up on her life in 2014 after reaching out, changing schools and feeling both the public and private school systems had ultimately failed her. Constant anxiety, panic attacks, and breakdowns resulted in self-harming and increasingly suicidal thoughts, which eventually led to suicide attempts and hospitalisation.
After leaving school Abby was gradually able to rebuild her life, gain her Certificate in Community Service and start volunteering, realising her passion to help others to feel the happiness and self-worth she struggled to find for herself throughout her school years.
Now ready to step back into the environment which was once so threatening she lost the will to live. Abby knows that if her story helps just one person she will have been successful in her mission.
Abby’s story helps youth, teens and educators understand the destructive impact of bullying and abuse, and the resulting mental health issues they can cause. Abby hopes the schools who hear her message will implement greater measures to address mental health issues such as bullying, so that no one else needs to feel the same sense of hopelessness and isolation that she did.
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