When Melinda Graham takes the brave step of having all her long hair completely shaved off in March she will be doing it for her late daughter.
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In the process she wants to help prevent other families having to experience what hers did when Mrs Graham’s daughter Jessica Tolhurst, of Unanderra, lost a long battle on December 7, 2015.
A victim of teenage bullying at school it continued on the phone and social media away from the classroom.
As a result Jessica battled anxiety, depression and an eating disorder for several years.
Since her tragic death Mrs Graham and Miss Tolhurst’s step-father Dave Graham have been working towards creating an anti-bullying foundation and having anti-bullying legislation debated in NSW Parliament.
They feel vulnerable teens are being let down by the health system, educators and politicians and the head shave in mid March is about raising awareness, funds for a 24 hour helpline and securing more signatures for a petition.
“It is really hard. You just want to go and hide,” Mrs Graham said of her loss.
“But we are doing this for Jess. People say to me “how do you do it?” But my logic is Jess fought for four years really hard. If I don’t continue to fight and continue to get up and out of bed I would be giving up on Jess. And I won’t do that.”
Mrs Graham is also personally helping others going through what her daughter did.
“We have helped kids get out of school early because they were getting severely bullied,” she said..
The Graham’s thought they had enough signatures online for legislation to be debated in parliament only to be told they needed them on paper. They have been working hard ever since and now need only 800 more signatures to present the petition to parliament. They hope doing a public head shave will help achieve that.
The Graham’s have received support from people such as Dee Milenkovic and 2010 Wollongong Citizen of the Year Jim Clabour. National Anti-Bullying Day is March 16 and the head shave is planned for Thursday night March 15.
“We only needed 10,000 with the petition,” Mrs Graham said.
“We got 26,000 in the first two-and-a-half weeks when it went online. When we tried to go to government with it we found out that NSW is the only state that will not take online petitions”.
Ms Milenkovic and Mr Clabour are so inspired by the Grahams they want to establish a centre to provide a place of help and support for people with strategies to aid physical, mental and emotional health. They are presently looking for a venue.
“We want to call it that The Rising Tide because a rising tide lifts all boats,” Ms Milenkovic said.
Mr Clabour is a boxing trainer who worked for many years with PCYC and was recognised for his work with youth and the disadvantaged.
As they establish an anti-bullying foundation called Bobdan the Grahams have been working with Angels Hope and Don’t Bully.
Mr Graham, who runs a construction business, said he too is having his head shaved to raise funds to help Angels Hope establish a helpline for youth “who are being bullied and doing it tough”.
“Other people can join us and get their own sponsors,” he said.
Mrs Graham has already had a couple of teenage girls say they were interested and thinks that will send a very good message.
“The project is called It Adds Up,” Mrs Graham said.
Read more:
Facebook Live with Melinda Graham just before Christmas: