The stereotype is that teenagers, especially teenage girls, talk all the time.

But this Thursday, one 15-year-old is seeking to turn that upside down and use silence to make a point about those who can’t speak up for themselves.

Aunica Budgeon, a freshman at Hazen High School, planned to keep quiet from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday as part of the We Are Silent campaign, an initiative of WE Day that encourages students to take a vow of silence to speak up for kids fighting for their basic human rights.

Budgeon planned to head to school on Thursday with a t-shirt that reads “I am silent because of bullying in schools that goes unknown.”

“No one is going to stand up and say ‘I’m being bullied,’” Budgeon said Tuesday. “It goes without being heard.”

Budgeon said she has a friend who in sixth-grade went through some intense bullying that depressed them and even led to suicidal thoughts.

“It’s stayed with me since then,” she said.

Budgeon also does spoken word and speaks publicly against bullying.

The We are Silent campaign grew out of WE Day, which Budgeon attended in April in Seattle. Budgeon volunteers weekly and her co-ordinator at the YMCA had extra tickets to the April event.

“It was amazing,” Budgeon said of the experience, adding that just knowing the entire arena was filled with teenagers who came together for a cause was powerful.

In her more than four years volunteering, Budgeon said she has seen the impact one can have when helping to teach a younger student how to finish their homework, or just the smile from a victim when bullying stops.

She hopes to take that message back to her school, even if on Thursday she had to carry a white board to explain why she can’t talk.

“I hope people realize a school isn’t just a place where you get your assignments,” she said. “It’s a community of young individuals who will forever affect each other.

“You can impact everyone around you to a point where it’s unforgettable,” she said.

She hopes that her silent stand against bullying will encourage others to speak out as well.

“What I’m doing seems incredibly small, almost invisible, but if you get one more person with it, then two more, then eight more until a whole school, a whole city is doing something more than themselves,” she said. “I’m just really excited.”