‘Being there was like being in hell,’ recounts Christian Emmanuel Cruz Sanchez.

‘I don’t want to exaggerate but almost every single day of high school, I cried when I came back home.’

Cruz Sanchez grew up and went to school in Bogota, Colombia.

He knows first-hand how hard it is to openly identify as LGBTI in school.

‘The harassment when I was 16 years old was the worst ever,’ he tells Gay Star News.

‘I remember on one particular day, I just wanted to stop my sorrow and thought I would commit suicide.’

Thankfully, Cruz Sanchez didn’t go through with it and will always be grateful for the support and love of his true friends and family.

Alba Reyes is the mother of a Colombian gay son who took his own life after being bullied in school in 2014.

Reyes was shocked to discover that her son was being bullied, by the students but also by the teachers: ‘I’ve now found out that they used to take him out of class every day to go to psychotherapy and discuss his sexual orientation.’

‘That’s when I understood that it’s my responsibility as a mother to make sure what happened to Sergio never happens again,’ she says in the video.

Reyes created the Sergio Urrego Foundation to help combat LGBTI bullying in schools and prevent more kids taking their own lives.

As part of a campaign with Google, Reyes visits schools in Bogota to bring them a virtual pride parade.

The initiative gives students the chance to experience a pride parade they might otherwise never see in real life, all in the safety of the classroom.

Wiping away tears, one student says: ‘For a moment in time, I could see [and] I could feel with such intensity – all that love, all that care, all of those people.’

Reyes says: ‘It’s important to show affection to anyone who’s felt neglected.’

‘I think these types of campaigns are the ones who help create peace – peace within and peace all around,’ she says.

Watch the video below: