Translator: Maurício Kakuei Tanaka Reviewer: Leonardo Silva
Hello, everybody.
My name is Charlie Cooper, and I'm nine years old.
I go to Trinity Beach State School.
I have an idea that is worth spreading.
If I share with you a new way to make friends,
and help people just like me find confidence,
would you listen?
Let me tell you a bit about myself.
I was born on the 21st of June, 2005,
in a small town in New South Wales,
called Narrabri.
I live at home with mom, dad, my brother, sister.
I have two dogs and a bearded dragon.
I often play with my Lego,
and I love to fly planes on my dad's flight simulator.
I'm a quiet kid, and don't often tell people how I feel.
But Mom always knows when I am sad.
When I was six years old and in grade two,
my teacher noticed I was having trouble at school,
not only with my schoolwork, but also in making friends.
After I had my eyes tested, we found out I was very long-sighted.
Then I got new glasses, which helped me with my schoolwork,
but not with my confidence.
I got called names, and this hurt my feelings.
But I couldn't see without them.
Around this time, I didn't have many friends.
One day, after swimming lessons,
my school shirt was even flushed down the toilet.
This made me feel sad.
But I still went to school every day, and tried my hardest,
even when people would laugh at my handwriting.
A year or so later, we went on a family holiday to America.
When we were there, Mom and I read a news article
about a boy who had a similar idea to help people who had new friends.
We got home, Christmas came and went,
and I was still feeling sad at break times.
Mom and Dad got me some extra tutoring.
This helped heaps.
And I also repeated grade two, which at the time made me sad.
I found it hard to play with other kids,
so I ended up playing on my own at the library with the bricks.
From there, I wrote a letter,
which a kind man from school called Lee
handed the letter to the local hardware store.
They thought the idea was great,
and ended up supplying all the wood and varnish for the project.
Then Lee took the letter to the Men's Shed.
They were also very excited to help out with the project,
and built the bench for our school, free of charge.
This idea is one worth spreading.
It's such a simple idea to create friendship and eliminate loneliness.
The idea is that if someone is sad or has no friends to play with,
they can sit on the bench.
And the whole school knows this friendship bench has a purpose.
If someone is on the bench,
then other children in the playground are going to invite that child to play,
or ask them if they want to walk and talk.
My school principal has told everybody the rule of the bench,
and it's monitored by teachers, too.
The thing is, with people's help and your own hard work,
anything is possible,
even if you think it's not sometimes.
I would like to see a buddy bench in every school in Australia.
That way children won't have to feel how I felt.
The bench acts as a friendship tool
to help people in making friends.
The bench is now used daily
all because I brought this idea to my principal's attention.
The bench encourages this happy, safe place,
a place where kids can feel safe and welcome.
This is what my school is,
a school where the word "bullying" is not used,
but where happy and safe play is encouraged.
Now it may be small, but I believe that little people just like me
can really make a big difference in the world
if some wood, hammer and nails can make people feel special and included.
And this really is an idea that is worth spreading.
Thank you for your time.
(Applause)