Here’s a scenario for you: You’re at a house party, you see a girl that you don’t really know and she is obviously drunk. She’s stumbling over things, spilling her drink, falling down. She’s a mess. But more importantly, she’s alone. A boy you also do not know approaches her and tries to lead her out of the door. The girl looks confused, but isn’t really resisting. As a bystander, what would you do?
The right answer is to act. But that is rarely what happens. Think about all the times you might have been in this very same scenario. Did you act? Did others around you act? You might be thinking, “It isn’t my business. I shouldn’t get involved,” but that is the same mentality that the campus organization One Act is proving to be false.
One Act is a collaboration between student leaders and Counseling and Wellness Services. The organization’s mission is to reduce interpersonal violence on UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus through the education of community members to recognize, prevent and interrupt potentially harmful situations.
This mission is carried out through their four-hour training program, which is led by peer educators and UNC staff.
Although it is a fairly new organization, having been around for about a year, its popularity is evident. The original five training sessions this spring were filled to capacity, a sign for the group to add two more training sessions, which also filled up quickly. There are no more sessions for the spring semester, but be on the lookout for the fall schedule.
The training session might seem long, but it is a very inclusive discussion that requires time to go over specific issues. Interpersonal violence encompasses emotional and physical abuse, sexual assault and stalking. To cover all those serious acts of violence in depth and how to prevent them takes time, especially since there are different ways to act in different situations.
A session typically begins with the goals of the training, which are to help you recognize the early warning signs of interpersonal violence, to give you the opportunity to practice and implement leadership skills to take preventative action and for you to leave the training feeling confident about how you can make a difference to contribute to a safer campus environment.
There is also a group agreement that takes place before the training begins. Everyone in the group has to agree to participate, but not dominate, to be honest, to speak from their own experience, to make comments respectful and to practice self-care and confidentiality. All participants are under an agreement that what is said in the training stays there, allowing for a safe place to talk about personal stories.
The rest of the training teaches how to become an active bystander. A bystander, by definition, is someone who is present but not taking part in the situation, so they have a choice whether or not to act. By becoming an active bystander, a person must observe and access the situation and then ACT.
By acting, the bystander will: Ask for help, Create a distraction and Talk directly. Afterwards, the person will follow up with the people involved. All the steps are covered thoroughly in the training, to prepare you to be able to act, should the situation present itself.
Being an active bystander can be the way to get between a victim and an attacker and potentially save that person from becoming a victim of interpersonal violence. So, when that girl at the party is about to walk out of the door with a guy that she doesn’t seem to recognize, remember to ACT. Ask for help from your friends or anyone standing close by. Create a distraction by stopping her to say she left her purse in the bathroom and then take her away to make sure she’s alright. Or talk directly to her and ask if she knows the boy that is trying to take her home and if she wants to go with him or where her friends are. It only takes One Act to stop interpersonal violence. What will yours be?
For more information about One Act, contact the group at one_act@unc.edu, on Facebook, or Twitter (@oneactcarolina).