Why Participate?
Bullying continues to be a major issue despite the fact that awareness of the problem is at an all-time high. I founded Martial Artists Against Bullying (MAAB) because I believe that no other industry is in a better position to do something about bullying than the martial arts industry.
Having visited martial arts schools all over the world, I know we are already doing a lot to address bullying. The mere act of training in martial arts and having children develop a higher level of confidence decreases their chances of being bullied in the first place.
With that said, we can do a much better job, and we’ll be more effective if we do it together. If you’re done with bullying, please consider joining hundreds of martial arts professionals around the world to participate in MAAB. As a member, you’ll receive a full lesson plan with scripts for your instructors to teach an anti-bullying seminar at your school. You’ll also receive free marketing materials to promote your event, and will be listed as a participating MAAB school on our website.
As individual marital artists we make a difference in our community, but as a united movement… we can change the world.
Respectfully,
Dave Kovar
MAAB Founder
Dave Kovar is a life-long martial arts professional and anti-bullying advocate. Mr. Kovar has been teaching anti-bullying strategies to his students for over 35 years. His prior program, “School Safe/Street Safe,” from which “Done with Bullying” is based, has been taught in over 1,000 martial arts schools around the world. Click here to learn more about Dave.
The Mission
The Mission of MAAB is to enlist the international martial arts community in a unified effort to educate, inform, and help eradicate bullying. This program is designed to help children of all ages overcome the negative impact of bullying. It teaches participants:
Awareness – How to identify predator behavior
Avoidance – Realistic ways to avoid being a target of bullying
Assertiveness – How to stop bullying behavior
Research shows that bullying peaks in the 5th, 6th and 7th grades. The goal of this program is to minimize the effects of predatory behavior in grade school and middle school-aged children. This will be accomplished through role playing, small group discussions and empathy training.
The Charitable Partnership
The Aim High Foundation is in partnership with Martial Artist Against Bullying and Kovars Inc.
At Aim High, community responsibility and volunteerism are key components of our Intelligent Curriculum. Our students and clients have completed over 10,000 hours in community service projects to benefit other organizations and businesses. We host workshops helping our youth, elderly, young girls, and so much more. For many years Aim High has partnered with amazing like-minded organizations like Kovars, Inc to provide specialized programs targeting those victims of bullying and the bullys themselves in hopes of making life changing developments. This one-of-kind program for adults and children, builds confidence, self-esteem and self-defense skills for some of our most vulnerable people. Our anti bullying campaign and our youth empowerment leadership program include those with special needs as part of our efforts to reach out to at risk youth.
Aim High is unique in the way that it realizes annual funding. Over our ten years in business we have developed the martial arts school as the primary funding arm of the organization so that our administrative costs are through that monthly tuition funding. Because of this we can say 90-100% of donation income goes directly to work with field needs and isn’t used by administrative costs. This is HUGE in the nonprofit world.
As a non-profit we are a martial arts school, at-risk youth arm and arm working to deliver services to children with developmental disabilities, which is rare in our industry, we are devoted to the physical, mental, and spiritual development of our community and ourselves. That means never turning any student away regardless of ability to pay. Countless local families receive help through our scholarship and tuition assistance. We raise funds for tuition, uniforms and gear, workshops and camps. In 2014, Aim High funded or partially funded more than 100 students and families. Our goal for 2015 is to increase this community assistance to anti-bullying methods nationwide.
The Program
The MAAB program is a 3-4 hour “Done with Bullying” seminar. This seminar is broken up into four highly-interactive sessions. Each session can be taught as a separate class, but the program is most effective when all four sessions are done on the same day. Each session is designed to give participants realistic strategies for dealing with most school or neighborhood bullying scenarios.
The four sessions are:
- Session I – What is bullying? Why do people do it? Why is it bad to bully others? (45-60 minutes)
- Session II – What we should and shouldn’t do when we see others being bullied? (45-60 minutes)
- Session III – How should you deal with bullying? (60-75 minutes)
- Session IV – Buddying (45-60 minutes)
How the Program Was Developed
The “Done with Bullying” program was developed by Dave Kovar, a life-long martial arts professional and anti-bullying advocate. Mr. Kovar has been teaching anti-bullying strategies to his students for over 35 years. His prior program, “School Safe/Street Safe,” from which “Done with Bullying” is based, has been taught in over 1,000 martial arts schools around the globe.
Special thanks goes out to several other martial arts professionals who helped develop “Done with Bullying” by giving feedback and sharing their knowledge freely. They are: Bill Kipp, Christopher Rappold, Mike Valentine, Brian Higgins, Patrick Kelly, Nick Wilson, Tim Leard, Fariborz Azhakh, Danny Sikkens and Tom Callos.