An award winning project promoted by Watton Air Cadets will be launched in schools to prevent bullying.The scheme pioneered by sisters and Air Cadets Ria and Ellice and Neola Bush as well as Air Cadet Harriet Gilford aims to help pupils communicate “silently” by dropping their messages into boxes provided freely through the project to schools across the county and further afield.

AN award-winning project promoted by Watton Air Cadets will be launched in schools to prevent bullying.

The scheme, pioneered by air cadet sisters Ria, Ellice and Neola Bush and fellow cadet Harriet Gilford, aims to help pupils at schools across the county and further afield speak out "silently" by dropping their messages into Smile Boxes provided by the project.

The cadets have now teamed up with Thetford company Premier Plastics which will be producing the Smile Boxes.

Harriet said: "Meeting up with Dennis Lucken of Premier Plastics has taken us to another high in our efforts to eradicate bullying in schools. His interpretation of our conceptual idea for our Smile Box and the working design the firm has made for us is truly amazing."

The first prototype box is now available, attracting interest from schools throughout Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex and as far afield as Scotland and Canada.

Neola said: "We spent

several months trying

to find a suitable plastics company with a sympathetic attitude to our Smile Box and campaign.

"It had to be a company that was small enough to care with a price that our project could afford, but above all it had to help us come up with an inspirational design that would be warm and receptive to primary school children. We feel Premier Plastics has achieved all this."

She added: "We have been very busy fundraising to enable the Smile Boxes to be given free to requesting schools in Norfolk and Suffolk. "When funding is available we would like to extend this throughout the country. So far, 80 primary schools throughout the region have requested Smile Boxes."

The girls have all encountered some form of bullying and are passionate about a zero-tolerance approach to bullying in schools.