Neighbourhood Watch Message
Although the National Bystander Awareness Day was yesterday, the advice and training is ongoing.
The campaign aims to unite people to tackle hate and hostility, and to raise awareness of ways that you can help people who suffer from hate.
Crimes and harmful behaviours such as public sexual harassment and hate crime are significantly under-reported by victims. There are a number of reasons for this, but a key factor is the everyday nature of these incidents and the fact that they are ‘deeply ingrained in our culture’. Tragically the sexual harassment of women and girls in public places means that victims who regularly experience sexual harassment or hate crime often see their experiences as insufficiently serious to report. However, sexual harassment or hate crime, no matter how ‘serious’ the individual incident might be, pervades the lives of those who experience it
relentlessly. Incidents of this kind are often likely to escalate if not addressed.
How can you be a more active bystander?
In support of National Bystander Intervention Day, we encourage you to book yourself onto a free, one hour online webinar. Entitled Stand up against street harassment, this bystander intervention training is
delivered by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, in partnership with L’Oréal Paris. The training is highly relevant as a bystander response to all forms of street harassment, including sexual harassment, disability harassment, harassment against ethnic minority or marginalised groups, and all forms of hate crime, empowering the learner to know how to support someone who is being victimised.
The training focuses on the 5 D’s intervention programme, originally pioneered by the international NGO Right to Be. It encourages those who witness harassment to act by:
1. Distracting the perpetrator
2. Delegating by asking for help
3. Documenting the harassment
4. Directly intervening by speaking up in the
moment
5. Delaying by checking to see if the person is okay
The programme raises awareness of street harassment with a call-to-action on a global scale. By opening the public’s eye to the scale of harassment that women in particular experience, Stand Up aims to simultaneously discourage harassers, support victims, and encourage bystanders to intervene. The aim is to drive a cultural shift in the global response to street and public harassment.
The training is open to everyone 18 years old and over, as action from all genders and ages is vital. There is a selection of dates and times to choose from. Click the link below to find out more.
Sign up to the training