London Police Officer Sandasha Ferguson has released a song called “You’re a V.I.P.” for an anti-bullying initiative.
As a School Safety Officer, Ferguson delivers a number of programs to students in 29 schools which include issues surrounding bullying and cyber bullying.
Ferguson also sings on a regular basis including the national anthem at London Police ceremonies and sporting events, including London Nationals games.
For the past four years, Sandasha has performed a song with the LPS rock band, “Duty Calls”, during the grade six V.I.P. (Values, Influences and Peers) program’s annual field trip.
On her own time, Sandasha teamed up with composer/songwriter David Scott from Delhi Music out of Guelph. After consulting and sharing her vision with him, he created the song titled “You’re a V.I.P.”. She recorded the song with music producer, Jason Poole.
When creating the song, Ferguson says she wanted the song to be positive.
“I didn’t want it to be a negative song about bullying. I just want everyone to realize that absolutely everyone out there; they are a very important person in their own right.”
Ferguson believes when the people who take part in bullying realize they are important, and then bullying would probably stop.
Ferguson says it’s important to get the message across.
“It’s really important to me to get that message out there. We’re dealing with it constantly in the schools and out of the schools. It’s also something that not only kids and students have to deal with. You see it with adults on a regular basis as well.”
Ferguson says recording the song was really fun.
“This song was different because I knew I was actually doing something with it, it wasn’t just for fun. The recording itself takes a while. You have to sit and listen to it, to decide what you like and don’t like. And I’m not the person who likes listening to my own voice so it was hard to listening back to it over and over again. Trying to figure out what we were going to change, alter and if we needed to do anything. It ended up being amazing and better than I thought it was going to be.”
The song is available on iTunes and Amazon. Along with the song, a video was produced by videographer, Cameron Matthews, which will be presented at the V.I.P. field trip in February 2015.