DESCRIPTION:
Active Bystander Training is a short, interactive opportunity to think about what you would do if you witness someone doing harm to another.
Active Bystander training helps participants recognize when they are bystanders, analyze the situation and their options, and evaluate the consequences of their actions. It increases bystanders’ effectiveness by teaching how we each can interrupt harm doing and generate positive actions by others. Instead of becoming complicit through remaining passive, participants learn the competencies they need to decide to take action when they witness something they feel is troubling, unfair, or wrong. Active bystandership does not mean aggression against the harm doer, it means taking responsible action to help people in need.

Training includes:

• What inhibits bystanders from acting
• What promotes positive bystander behavior
• Putting oneself into the victim’s situation
• Feeling responsibility for others’ welfare
• Competence. The ability to have a positive influence, avoid harm to oneself and others
• Safe, non-confrontational strategies for intervention
• Promote caring for people both within and beyond one’s own group
• Promote the inclination to help others, and the moral courage to speak or act on behalf of positive values in the face of potential opposition
• Interactive exercises and activities: students discuss, brainstorm and roleplay bystander responses to varied situations

Location: 104 Epping Road, Exeter, NH 03833

Granite State Organizing Project
GSOP is the largest grassroots community organization in New Hampshire. We are comprised of religious congregations, community groups, labor organizations and individuals in New Hampshire united in our concern for economic and social justice. Responding to requests from our members for more tools to support positive community- based interventions and building on our training expertise, GSOP has integrated into our work an active bystander training based on the widely-used program developed by Quabbin Mediation.