This grieving dad seen here in happier times with his teenage daughter has opened up about the bullying that led the 15-year-old to tragically take her own life.
Teenage Kira from the Spanish city of Barcelona took her own life on 19th May last year, following months of being bullied at school.
And now her dad, Jose Manuel Lopez, is on a mission to warn others of the fatal consequences of bullying.
(@JMporKiraLopez/Newsflash)
He took to Twitter on Sunday, 6th March, to post a smiling picture of himself with his daughter on his back and with her arms wrapped around him.
He accompanied it with the text: “I would give my life to hug my daughter Kira again, without a doubt. The hug she gave me the night before, when she told me she loved me lots and that I was the best daddy in the world was a goodbye. Now I know. I miss you, it’s hard to live without you. #StopBullyingForKira”
At the time of writing, the tweet had been ‘liked’ 29,500 times.
Jose Manuel is a legal expert in the management and direction of educational centres. And since that fateful day in May last year, he is now an anti-bullying and suicide-prevention activist.
And his message seems to be getting through, not least because Ines Arrimadas, one of Spain’s best-known MPs and spokeswoman of the centre-right Citizens party, used Kira’s example to bring attention to the “over 10 Spaniards who commit suicide every day”.
Suicide is believed to be the most common cause of death from unnatural causes in Spain and is one of the greatest problems facing Spanish society.
Arrimadas wrote on Twitter in September last year: “Kira cannot be a number, nor can any of the over 10 Spaniards who commit suicide every day or the millions of families who suffer from #MentalHealth problems. There is an urgent need to implement the National Strategy that we approved in Congress to combat this scourge.”
Jose Manuel continues to raise awareness of the issue on Twitter and recommends that there be fewer students per teacher so that bullying can be better detected and more closely monitored.
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Story By: William McGee, Sub-Editor: James King, Agency: Newsflash
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