Archives for July 2010

Nerissa George usually gets up at 6 a.m. on Labor Day to give herself enough time to get into her costume and head out onto Eastern Parkway for the West Indian-American Day Carnival. This year, however, she can sleep in an extra hour because of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s new five-hour limit on parades and street fairs. The carnival now begins at 11 a.m. instead of its former 10 a.m. start.

“I’m still going to participate but this really sucks,” said Nerissa George, 17, who has participated in the carnival for six years.

In an effort to save $3.1 million in police pay, Mayor Bloomberg announced that he would limit the amount of time used for public celebrations or cultural events such as the West Indian American Day Carnival, which will be reduced by three hours.

The West Indian-American Day Carnival is a Caribbean-style celebration designed to mirror those in Trinidad, Grenada, Barbados and other West Indian islands, where the carnivals are the biggest cultural events of the year. The entire country comes to a halt for a few days in order to celebrate and palance, a word used by Trinidadians to reflect a sense of enjoyment, fun and partying.

“There is unity and we come together as one and celebrate who we are,” said Bria Murray, 16-year old participant in the carnival. The celebration on Eastern Parkway acts as the closing ceremony to the summer season to many West Indians that live in New York City.

According to some the event doesn’t even fit into the Mayor’s policy. “This is not a parade, it is a carnival,” said Joseph Charles, founder of Sesame Flyers, whose 1,500 member band is the largest participant in the festivities

Others note that the city is actually losing money by shortening the time and route of the parade.

“You cannot save money by cutting down time,” said Marlon Smart, costume designer for the carnival bands Sesame Flyers and Ramajay. As the city’s largest street celebration, it generates $24 million in tax revenue annually, according the West Indian American Day Carnival Association officials. That is eight times the amount that the government is trying to save. “The cut down means less revenue for the city,” said Smart.

Blogger for popular cultural blog When Steel Talks said, “The economics work in favor of the city. The city will invest less in terms of police and other utility support and yet reap the same economic benefits. For example, the MTA is going to make the same amount of money regardless f the time factor. They typically run a rush hour schedule on the number 4 and 3 lines for the duration of the carnival on labor day.”

People that attend the parade and participate in it blame bandleaders for not being on time. This is a complaint of many participants: masqueraders spend a lot of time waiting for costume bands to move along the parade route. Costume bands and bandleaders make the carnival exciting for viewers; therefore if they are late the entire parade is delayed.

“Then they begin turning bands off the parade route because they are so late,” said Blake.

“Last year, three hours were wasted,” said George, 17-year-old participant in the parade.

Smart, the costume designer, said that as long as the fun factor is there people would still have a good experience despite the time restrictions.

New York is 2,456 miles from Arizona, yet young activists on opposite coasts are connected by their fury over new legislation in the Grand Canyon state that gives police the right to stop any civilian who looks like they may be an illegal immigrant.

New Yorkers of all ages protested on July 29, when the controversial Arizona immigration law was put into legislation.

“This bill strips away the core of what America stands for and promotes intolerance,” stated City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn in a recent press release.

The law, Senate Bill 1070, requires all immigrants to carry identification documents, prompting comparisons to the times of South African pass laws or Nazi Germany’s required Star of David. In previous interviews, Hispanic Federation President Lillian Rodríguez López has compared the law to Nazi Germany and South Africa’s apartheid.

Community organizer Roberto Mercedes agrees, “I think the law is very racist. It devalues society and is definitely not fair.” As part of the New York Civic Participation Project (NYCPP), Mercedes was an organizer of their July 29 rally.

Many doubt the legal standing of the law, claiming that it will lead to unwarranted fear of government among Mexican-Americans and extreme racial profiling.

“The law is unconstitutional,” said Bishop Orlando Findlayter, a Brooklyn community leader who has led many into activism against the law.

Many New York activists have called teens the driving force behind the protests, expressing shock over how involved young people have gotten in the issue.

Mercedes was one of 200,000 other protesters who attended the May Day rally held in Union Square Park this year. The protests were part of a national movement intended to fix both the broken immigration system and SB 1070. Rallies were scattered across seventy US cities, drawing millions of protestors.

Mercedes says that young people were an integral part of the New York demonstration, making up about half of the protesters.

“We want young people to have a say in their own country, in what laws they must abide by.” Findlayter is the chairman of Churches United to Save and Heal (CUSH) in Brooklyn, an organization that has taken drastic action against the law, putting effort into involving members of his youth community in rallies and protests.

His community has been writing letters to New York government officials and marching in rallies against the law. Findlayter said that this is an important way to give undocumented young immigrants a way to have their voices heard.

Mercedes says that youth are taking action because of personal connections to the matter.

“If I saw my parents or someone I cared about so severely affected by a law, I would want to participate. I would want to support them,” he said.

“This is an issue that is motivating young people in a big way,” said former New York high school teacher, Jose Rivera. “My students went out to a lot of protests and rallies. They seemed very motivated by the issue.”

Rivera has joined forces with many in efforts to create a nationwide boycott of all goods produced and associated with the state of Arizona, including traveling to the state to visit his family. 

“I’m staying out of Arizona altogether,” said Rivera. Many of the former Arizonanian’s family and friends are still residing in the area, but he has taken initiative and moved out of the state. His move is a change many of his family members are now considering.

“As a group, united, there is an opportunity for young people to be heard,” said Bahir Mustafa, an activist from the NYCPP who is a big supporter of youth rights. “They look at the impact of this law on the people around them, and they feel the need to do something about it.”

“Young people in this city, particularly Latino youth, have very much been mobilized by the Arizona law,” said Council Member Melissa Mark Viverito in an email interview. “I have seen many young people at rallies and other actions that have been held against the Arizona law and in support of immigration reform.”

“Immigration is the civil rights of the 21^st century. We can only hope that justice is given the same way,” said Findlayter.   

Dannie White, 17, would like to be working but he never got around to filling out job applications when school let out, so instead he spends his summer watching T.V. –  Teletubies to be exact.

Dannie is one of many teenagers who sink into lazy habits during the summer. Since he thought working was the only option to fill his days, he didn’t bother to find out about other activities that don’t involve getting paid.

“I’m not doing anything productive,” said Dannie, who would like to be a lawyer someday. His day’s hardest decision usually involves whether he should stay at home and watch SpongeBob or play basketball in the park. “I would rather be working but I’m very lazy in the summer,” said Dannie.

Dannie is one of the many teenagers that are not engaged in any activities during the summer time. Though there are many programs that Dannie can be involved in, such as those run by the Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD).

DYCD is a city agency that focuses on the way teenagers use their personal time. “Trying to make sure that teens are scheduled from 3 to10 p.m. is our main focus since it seems that’s the time where most crimes happen,” said Denise Williams, the general manager of DYCD.

“Literacy programs, Summer Youth job programs, sports programs, volunteer programs will help interact with others, to have more things that they look forward to,” said Williams. “By attending extra programs during the summer, it is a great way to build resumes, and get better connections with the people the teenagers worked with,” said Williams.

“We made accounts on different sites such as YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, so that teens could interact with us through the way a teen knows,” said Williams.

Even Williams admits that it isn’t easy for a teenager to find many of the programs that are available.

“Many of the DYCD programs aren’t reaching teens even through these websites and that’s because they don’t know where to look,” said Williams.

Dannie’s mother, Marie White, a law student, said, “It’s up to both me and Dannie to help him get engaged and I feel I wasn’t as engaged as I should be as a parent.”

Dannie is not the only teenager who feels he is unaware of the many programs that are available because he does not know where to look.

Oddisey Jones, 17, a high school student whose dreams of becoming a veterinarian, said, “There is nothing else I could look for. There is nothing else I could find.”

For teenagers like Oddisey and Dannie, there are many opportunities out there that they can get if they would only know where to find them.

“Teenagers can call or sign up with Youth Connect at 1-800-246- 4646,” said Williams. “There is this saying that states if you don’t plan to succeed, you plan to fail. Teenagers are our future, they are the next generation instead of wasting summers, do something productive.”

A few months ago Carlos Akino with his family from Bedford Park because of violence that broke out at a pizza shop right down the block from where he lived.

Carlos Akino a former resident of 204 street is one person who moved with his family to another neighborhood because of the shooting.

“It was scary”, “having something like that happen so close to you” said Carlos Akino a former resident of 204 street. “Georges pizzeria was like the father of the neighborhood”. “It was my after school hangout”. “The food was good and neighborhood was calmer”. Said Carlos.

Carlos also stated that he started notice graffiti starting booming more on building walls right after the shooting.

“Ever since that shooting took place, stores have been closing down like wild fire,” he said. “Its hard enough that as storeowners we have to deal with problems in our every day lives, but to deal with violence on this is just ridiculous”. Said Mr. Felix.

Since the shooting, Mr. Felix has closed his café.

The business owners of Bedford Park were not only ones affected though. Residents like Mrs. Rose who have been long time residents of 204 street have also noticed changes within the neighborhood.

“Bedford was not always like this”. “There was a time when everything was quiet, calm and relaxing”. “There was even a teashop I used to go, to get bubble tea and coffee.” “Sadly it closed down right after the shooting”.” It’s a shame since that store was something new for the neighborhood”.

Mrs. Rose also replied by saying she would not move out of the neighborhood if the gang violence escalated. “Just because I am old; I am not going to let a bunch of street punks scare me out of my neighborhood”. Said Mrs. Rose.

This shooting has caused residents to move and stores to close down and move. In addition to all the chaos this shooting has caused Bedford Park, residents still don’t know why this John Doe was killed. While talking with a gang member, he gave me a little insight into why this incident happened.

“They had to have killed him because he was probably from a rival gang member or he had started a problem”. “They would not have killed unless he had brought trouble upon himself”. Usually the only time when a gun is involved in gang activity is either for robbery, initiation, killing a rival gang member, or a personal vendetta”. Said the Gang member.

The gang member also said “this shooting should not escalate into a bigger problem, unless it’s a territory issue”.

Consequently, the real damage has already been done to 204 street in Bedford Park. With the business owners starting to move and the residents packing their up, 204 street has really been hit with a bad case of domino effect. If residents and police don’t start working together to make sure Bedford does not get over run with gang violence just like Europe got over run by the black death, then 204 will continue suffer.

“I will let them take over my home”. Said Mrs. Rose. If residents of 204 street don’t start getting the same attitude as Mrs. Rose has, then residents of 204 street can expect more acts of gang an unrelated violence to come.

A mother of two, Wai Ping Ma finds it hard to keep up her family budget.  She had to give up buying supplies for family usage. Her family had to depend on using re-used items rather than using new ones. Instead of every year buying new supplies for school, Ma’s family have to use the item they didn’t finish from the year before.

Some families are making sacrifices in order to provide their children with necessities for school because budget cuts have slashed many programs their children used to go to.

Ever since the budget cuts in school programs were announced, Ma’s family has been struggling to keep their finances under control because they would need to pay for other afterschool programs, since the school no longer provide the same program.

Ma and her family live in an apartment in Chelsea. She has two daughters, one who is currently in college.  She used to work in a factory in Chinatown. She was born and raised in Guang Dong, China, but moved to America with her family 19 years ago, hoping to live a better life.

“School budget cuts are affecting me personally because currently I am unemployed and my youngest daughter has one more year until she goes to college,” said Ma.  “It is hard enough that only my husband brings home the income.  As a family, we have to cut down the things we buy, like clothes and shoes.”

Some families have feared the budget cuts since the start of the economic downfall; The city has had a budget gap since 2008 and the government has threatened to cut 8,500 teacher positions,  according to an article on CNN.com.

Having less staff to teach children in programs would contribute to the eventual disappearance of these programs. Children need programs to have their best education and without programs to educate children, they will have nothing to do.  For some families, grandparents had to make sacrifice in order to make the best for their grandchildren’s in school.

Lu Zhao Ma Song lives in an apartment in Chinatown by herself. She has two granddaughters, aged 9 and 10, who lives in Uptown. They attend an afterschool program call “Virtual Y” that was in their school, PS.42.  This program moved to a YMCA in East Broadway.  The move caused distress in Ma song’s household.

“If the government cut any more programs or move programs to another place, it will be hard for me to bring them home,” said Ma Song.  “I’m already a 76-year-old grandma and all I want is my grandkids to have fun, but fun is too far away.”

 â€œI don’t want my grandma to walk so far to bring us home.  She already has back problem and I don’t want to see her injure herself again,” said Ma Song’s granddaughter Yu Yin.  Next year, I am probably not going back to this program because it is too far from my grandma home, even though I really want to go.”

Suki Wong, a 17 year old, at Baruch College Campus High School loves taking AP Art, but her class will be the last to enjoy it.

“In my school, I heard that they would cut the AP art class. I am passionate about art and now I have to go to elective classes unrelated to art,” said Suki

“My mom works at a day care center and she has to be aware of the supplies they have. The government is cutting funds used to buy supplies for children,” said Suki.  “My mom makes me re-use items and makes sure I don’t waste items that can be still used.  I find that a struggle.”

“Cuts to the Department of Education’s budget leave our most vulnerable children and youth without the services and supports that they need to succeed in school,” said Ailin Chen, an education policy manager at Coalition for Asian American Children and Families. CAACF works New York City families on education and health isues.

“All I want for next year is to have afterschool program to go to. I hope the Department of Education won’t cut afterschool program in my school because I don’t want my parents spending extra money only for a program of 2 hours,” said Wendy, 9 who goes to PS.42, an elementary school in Chinatown.

Zakir Chowdhury and his family are feeling the burden of the recent robberies that are circulating around Parkchester. What’s worse, these residents feel like the police aren’t doing enough to protect them.
The crime that is occurring in the community is scaring the residents. The statistics on robberies are overwhelming. This lingering affect of robberies in the community is causing many residents to rethink the decision to call Parkchester home.
This year there have been 13 more burglaries than last year. Almost passed midpoint of the year, robbery is leaping towards passing the 2009 statistics.
So far this year, the population in Parkchester is steadily declining. Juana Tatis, an employee who works at the Parkchester North Condominium thinks the population will continue to be affected negatively if the community and the police department don’t find an alternative way to prevent robberies.
“People are unemployed and teenagers are out on the street causing trouble,” said Tatis. “The robberies have been a devastating blow to this neighborhood. I think the population will continue to decline and we will see more empty apartments.”
Residents in Parkchester are aware of recent crimes. Community members post community news and updates in building lobbies around the neighborhood.
Recent robberies are causing havoc in Parkchester. People are more inclined to leave the community because they feel unsafe. Just ask 36-year-old father, Zakir Chowdhury who has been residing in Parkchester for 10 years. He has three children that go to Middle School 127 and feels the overwhelming burden on his shoulder about the recent robberies.
“I feel that Parkchester has changed a lot, there are a whole lot of thefts going on and of course the Parkchester security doesn’t do anything about it.” Chowdhury said. He said the police have been careless in responding.

The 43rd Precinct Police Department has ordered more officers to patrol the streets of Parkchester more efficiently. They have placed more officers in places where there is heavy crime.
“The main priority of the 43rd Precinct is to protect the lives and property of residents by reducing and preventing crimes,” said Chris Cunningham, a veteran officer who patrols the street of Parkchester.
As for the future, Chowdhury says, “I am waiting for my lease to be over to move elsewhere because I will not continue to raise my children in this horrible neighborhood.”
Joseph Nazrul, a resident from Parkchester, left the neighborhood and moved with his family to Amarillo, Texas. Nazrul felt the neighborhood was unsafe, particularly the place where he was residing.
“Every time me and my wife are at work, we were worried that someone might break into our apartment. There was always a sense of panic,” said Nazrul.
Last April, Nazrul was robbed coming home from work. When Nazrul approached his building, he realized that he was being followed. Unlike other victims, Nazrul was not brutally beaten or left helpless on the ground. Instead, the perpetrators simply took his wallet and everything in it and escaped.
Police officials responded to the scene, but they were too late. The three alleged perpetrators left. Nazrul hopes the community gets safer and the police are able to maintain the security.
“The police officers in my opinion are not doing enough. Yes they’re patrolling the neighborhood but I just don’t feel they’re doing enough to help stop the recent robberies,” said Nazrul.

If it weren’t for the bowties and the pocket protectors, Livia Zambrano, 17, would consider becoming an accountant. But the number crunching dork image doesn’t appeal to her. Still, she likes the idea of serving her community like her “role model mom” who is a CPA.

“Seeing her perseverance and determination makes me as well want to take upon the challenge of becoming an accountant,” said Livia.

Livia attends Queens Gateway to Health Sciences Secondary School and she loves to run as a hobby. As a track runner, she wants to challenge herself in beating the time like taking upon the challenge of becoming an accountant.

Accounting is a field some teens are considering but they are having trouble with the “dork” image.

“I think on a typical day, they are on the computer all day long doing taxes for people,” said Cindy Wen, 17, who live in Chelsea.

It’s not true that accountants stare at numbers on the computer all day until their eyes go blind.

“I run around the firm daily, meet clients and file taxes,” said Xue Mei Gao, an accountant who worked at her firm in Mott Street for 5 years.

According to Gao, accounting tends to rank first among top employers with job offers for college graduating students. Teens are drawn to this field because accountants make a great deal of money.

“I think it is easy to make money in the accounting field because you just sit there and calculate taxes. Other professions require higher education and degrees that accountants don’t need in order to make a lot of money,” said Cindy.

“I wanna be a billionaire so fricking bad, as the “Billionaire” song by Travie McCoy says,” said Amanda Erakky, 17. “Who wouldn’t want a lot of money?”

According to the teens, they want to major in accounting but they are unprepared for their future career.

“At the moment, there is nothing I can really do to prepare for my future career,” said Amanda.

“Many teens have no idea what they want to do with their career until they have experienced so many other careers,” said Gao.

For Gao, she mentioned she worked as a McDonald employee, a bank teller, and a supermarket cashier when she was a teen. At the end, she chose accounting because it suits her the most.

There are many organizations out there that promote accounting to teens that are interested. Career Opportunities in Accounting Profession (COAP) is one of the programs that promote accounting and let teens experience what it feels like to be an accountant.

“After joining the COAP program, I had insight of two accounting firms which were very exciting to see accounting myths aren’t true and being an accountant is actually a really fun job,” said Livia, a member of COAP 2010.

“The COAP program was a great experience and it helped me learn that accounting is not about sitting at a desk and adding numbers but about being able to travel and meet new people,” said Daniel Rios, also a member of COAP 2010.

Accountant is not about being the smartest or fastest in calculating numbers but having leadership skills, technologically adept, strategic and critical thinking according to Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), one of the largest accounting firms in United States.

According to Cindy Wong, a bookkeeper and an accountant who works at a day care, accountants have to know the basic skills in Microsoft office suites, have ability to interpret financial information and possess strong communication and listening skills.

Accounting is neither a solitary profession nor the image of dorks glued to their seats, crunching numbers, and squeezing their brains until they explode.

On the contrary, accountants do a lot of traveling to sites, work in different teams for different clients, and continue advanced learning and training.

“At first when I did not know that much about accounting, I thought it was an extremely boring and dull job,” said Livia. “But after being exposed to the career and having professionals tell me about their experiences, I believe the myths are all wrong”.

Hands moving, fingers turning and bodies huddling with one another. Youths, seniors and urban planners were all grouped around four tables in the courtyard of Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE), a community organization in the Lower East Side. With scissors chopping and pipe cleaners molding into shapes, they built a model of the community garden that they collectively designed.

According to Abby Deatley, a staff member at AAFE, the community garden is being created to bridge a bond teens and senior citizens through community gardening.

Since May 2010, AAFE have been incorporating this garden initiative to their youth program Teen Action Club, funded by the NYC Department of Youth and Community Development. Youths meet once a week to help build the garden.

Community gardens “stimulates social interaction,” according to the American Community Gardening Association, and the one near Norfolk and Staton streets strives to do just that.

“We want to gather the youth and the seniors together,” explained Rebekah Meeks, a representative at AAFE. “The garden is for everyone for the youths to have a suburban experience and for the seniors to have a place to go to.”

The seniors joined the youths and urban planners in the brainstorming and planning process in early May before transforming the courtyard into a senior-friendly community garden.

Thirteen youths, eight seniors and seven urban planning experts huddled together in a table to play a planning game called charrette. Pipe cleaners and construction paper are everywhere; the youths leaned in closely to hear what the senior had to say and the seniors listened closely to the ideas of the youths. Talking, exchanging eye contacts, and laughing over ideas, the seniors slowly yet sharply cut out shapes with the youth, helping them create a paper and pipe cleaner swing, a tree, trousers, plants, and seats.

Wei Hua Mo, 22, a sophomore at Hunter College and part-time staff at AAFE said, “They [the seniors] are just like kids! They love to talk and they talk a lot.”

“We also asked the seniors to plant their own seeds and many of them just loved touching the soil,” said WenBin Kuang, 20, a student at Lower East Side Preparatory High School, which serves new and overage immigrant students.

He added that after the spring planning session, the youths and the seniors mingled to help move the plants the youths planted into materials donated by the community. More than 90 percent of the community garden is made from recycled materials. For instance, they used a broken green sink found near the Lower East Side as a planting pot.

The seniors are involved with the planning process, planting seeds and taking care of the garden in the future once it’s done building. The youths are responsible for the building. In the beaming sun, the group of 13 youths came to the community garden after summer school to get their hands dirty. They saw the wood, screw the woods together, painted trousers, planted seeds and drilled holes.

“The first day of building was hard. I remember five youths was trying to screw the bench and it took the youths and us [AAFE staffs] the whole day to build one bench. Now they build two benches a day by themselves!” said Meeks.

“I’ve always thought of my grandma as annoying, but now I like seniors. It was fun and eye-opening talking to the seniors, many of them sound so active,” said Manshui Lam, 19, a senior at Baruch College Campus High School.

The seniors at the community garden are from suburban garden-friendly areas in China. Living and working in the United States have limited their exposure to parks and gardens. As a way to thank the seniors for their support, this community garden has been built by youths just for them.

Deatley noted that gardening is a great way to interact different generations and races that speak languages.

“I can’t speak Cantonese but I can still interact with the seniors. They show me what to do and I show them what I want them to do,” said Jin Mei Chen, 18, a student at NYC Lab High School For Collaborative Studies.

Meeks said this community garden provides the seniors with a space that is made primarily for easy senior access, including his/her seats that didn’t require seniors to bend down when they are planting.

“They [seniors] teach the younger generation skills of gardening, teaching them how great it is to grow your own food,” said Deatley.

Many New York residents are using two wheels to fight against the MTA.

As the effects of the economy are being felt around the city, New Yorkers are looking for ways to save money. Biking in the city offers a unique way to get from one place to another, while saving money on one’s daily commute. With the cost of Metrocards rising all the time and the outrage at the MTA, angered residents are taking to the park on their bikes.

The bike path in Riverside was recently finished, allowing bikers to ride down from the George Washington Bridge to Battery Park at the bottom of the island, a project completed with money-saving New Yorkers in mind.

Lucca Zeray, a 17-year-old avid bike rider, has seen an increase in biking in recent years, even as far south as his neighborhood, Park Slope. He attributes this to the recession and people trying to save money anyway they can.

“There has been a drastic increase [in biking] since the price of Metrocards went up especially in the last four years,” Lucca says.

The city is promoting biking because they know that the recession is hurting people and the MTA is not doing anything to help. Government officials are making sure that people feel safe and comfortable in their city.

“In the Upper West Side, and all over the city, people are pinching pennies and tightening their purse strings. We realize that people are using the parks more and biking to save money. We are allocating money to provide these residents with appropriate places to do this safely,” said Shula Warren, chief of staff for Councilmember Gale Brewer.

With the completion of this path, people are riding not just for recreation, but also to make a statement to the MTA. Lucca thinks that the usage of bikes will only keep rising and the MTA will notice.

“This is going to show the MTA that they need to care more for [the citizens that use the subway],” he says.

Jesse Groom, 17, used to take the train, spending up to $50 a month on transportation, but the MTA’s actions have led him to become a devoted biker. He says biking makes him happy because he knows he doesn’t have to worry about money spent on transportation.

“Since I bike a lot, I can save my money for food and other things throughout the day,” he says.

With the current state of the economy, residents cannot afford to own a vehicle in the city. The upkeep of a bicycle is much less than a car. Residents do not have to spend money on gas or pay for parking.

“[Saving money] is the biggest draw that I have noticed for people switching to bikes, as owning a car in the city is a tedious experience,” Jesse says.

The city is providing people the opportunity to save money on their daily commute and feel safe and secure while doing it.

“What the bike lanes do is more provide a law based safety,” Jesse says. “When people are protected by the law, like they are in a bike lane, they are more likely to try biking and feel free to do it, saving them a great amount of money in their daily lives. ”

Teens have more free time during the summer:  free time to travel, free time to read and more free time to cyberbully.

Summer used to give teens shelter from schoolyard bullies, but some cyberbullies are just as active during July and August as they are the rest of the year. According to the Cyberbullying Research Center, as many as 14 percent of students are cyberbullies.

Maeve Koeltl, 17, from Westchester, N.Y., is a teen angel, a trained expert on cybersafety at Wired Safety, an online safety organization. According to Maeve, cyberbullying is defined as a malicious action using words or pictures over the Internet or any other type of interactive device.

“All you need is a computer, cell phone, or any other interactive media,” Maeve said.

Her research shows that cyberbullying takes place all year round. “What the Internet is allowing teens to do is 24/7 bullying,” Maeve said. “It’s not like they can go home and escape bullying. It follows them everywhere.”

Khalila Blake, 16, is one victim of cyberbullying. Khalila was looking at her friend’s comment on MySpace during the July Fourth Weekend in 2008 when she saw a comment made by an account that used her name. She commented on the fake MySpace profile and had an argument with the imposter. Though she hasn’t proven the cyberbully’s identity, “I believe it was somebody who I was close to,” Khalila said. “The person knew a lot of personal things about me.”

She immediately reported it to MySpace, but no one from MySpace did anything. Khalila followed her mom’s advice and stopped talking to the person who she thought was the cyberbully. She did not worry over the summer because she was not going to the same school as the cyberbully. The cyberbullying, however, did leave an emotional impact.

“It kinda made me nervous,” Khalila said, “because the person that you are really close to can hurt you the most.”

Jane, a high school student, was a recent victim of cyberbullying. Jane (who does not want her real named used) made an account on a website during the school year and received several callous comments from anonymous users. She had a feeling who wrote those comments and cancelled her account months ago. After the incident, Jane grew more cautious over the Internet.

“I have no one I can trust in at this point,” Jane said.

But for Jane, summer provides a respite.

“I feel much more protected over the summer on any website or anything online,” said Jane, relieved.

Although summer doesn’t affect some cyberbullying victims, some cyberbullies increase their activities in the summer. Tony Liu, 16, a self-proclaimed cyberbully, goes on online games like Counter Strike to curse and bother the other players when he is bored, angry, or as he puts it, “any given time and any given day.”

“I have free time and I don’t worry about school work or anything,” Tony said.

But some cyberbullies have better things to do during the summer than to be mean to people online.

“I cyberbully more in the school year because I was out more in the summer,” Tiffany Luk, a student at Baruch College, said.

Cyberbullying is getting more attention from state legislatures. Many states including New York, Missouri and Maryland have passed laws against digital harassment. California became the first state to pass a law allowing schools to discipline students online.

The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act was proposed to Congress last April and named after Megan Meier, who committed suicide after being cyberbullied by her friend’s mother, Lory Drew. The bill states that “whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.” This federal bill has not yet been ratified

Just as how state legislatures are coming up with laws to stop cyberbullying, social networking sites such as Formspring are working to end cyberbullying too. Formspring, a website where users answer questions to ask other users questions, launched a privacy option in July, eight months after the site launched.

“Users can select if they want to make their account ‘Protected,’ which means (that) it is not viewable/searchable on the Web,” Director of Communication Sarahjane Sacchetti said, “and that they have to grant access to users they want to share content with.”

By making this option available, Formspring allows users to block out unfamiliar logged in users and anonymous users who can potentially leave offensive comments.

Even though efforts are going into cyberbullying prevention, the best prevention is to take precaution.

“I think I learned a lesson,” Jane said “Be very careful what you say online. It really affects you in the long run.”