15/11/2022
From powerless bystander to saviour in a time of need.
On the train, the bar, the supermarket, and, with a little bad luck, also at the university of student association: you could witness inappropriate behaviour anywhere. Do you look away or intervene? And if so, how? That was the topic of the third SafeTEA evening. Resource joined in.
Social SafeTEA is an initiative by the Student Service Centre related to ‘feel safe at WUR’. The initiative consists of a combination of online challenges and events on campus. The workshop showed that active bystander is typically a topic that requires a live approach. Because how do you respond to a threatening or uncomfortable situation? Will it put you in danger?
Drunk
The hesitation the approximately fifteen participants felt at the start of the session had almost entirely vanished after half an hour. In a concluding role-playing game, they joined forces in an improvised but well-coordinated manner to end inappropriate behaviour. The role-playing involved semi-aggressive drunken behaviour, convincingly displayed by one of the participants. The typical drunk intrusively demanding another drink after the final round. But, it could just have easily been a situation in which a person invades someone’s personal space, a fellow traveller harassing a passenger on the train, or the umpteenth person wanting to touch your friend’s frizzy hair. The participants offered suggestions for a range of situations with which they are frequently confronted..
Positive feeling
The exercise in handling the drunk gave them a positive feeling, they said. For the victim, because they felt supported in getting out of a difficult situation, and for the bystanders because acting is better for your self-respect than being a helpless witness. Even the “drunk” felt okay, he said. The active bystanders had successfully redirected his focus and guided him to a spot a little further away, enabling him to back down without losing face or engaging in a confrontation. Thus, an escalation is prevented.
Those who want to join the Social SafeTEA programme can do so until 29 December. The last two SafeTEA Evenings are on 29 November and 7 December.