HALIFAX - It's Stand Up Against Bullying Day in Nova Scotia.

The province's education minister is planning to join students at a Halifax-area elementary school to mark the occasion.

Schools across the province -- including universities and colleges -- take part in the anti-bullying campaign every second Thursday in September.

The inspiration for the annual event came from two Grade 12 students in rural Nova Scotia -- Travis Price and David Shepherd.

In 2007, Price and Shepherd bought and distributed 50 pink shirts at their school in Cambridge after one of their male classmates was bullied for wearing pink.

Later that week, then-premier Rodney MacDonald wore a pink necktie and proclaimed Stand Up Against Bullying Day.

Similar anti-bullying campaigns soon sprang up across the country.