Wednesday, Oct. 21
7:00–9:00 pm | $29
With Arlington Community Education
Active Bystander Training especially geared for youth/high school/college prep
7:00–9:00 pm | $29
Please REGISTER here
Take your activism from protesting on the street to taking action in your daily life to encourage a more equitable society. Become an empowered activist and an active bystander, someone who not only witnesses a situation, but also speaks up or takes steps to defuse a situation or keep it from escalating. We’ll focus on looking at our own blindspots as well as the microaggressions and biases we witness in friends and family, and in places like school. Learn how to engage people your age, as well as adults and younger children, in effective and non-aggressive conversations around harmful things people have said or done in order to promote dialogue and change around these issues. Leave with a variety of tactics for handling public attacks and microaggressions in settings such as social media, in school, or at family gatherings.
Trainer: Franci DuMar
Franci began working with True Story Theater to lead Bystander Intervention Workshops three years ago. Now more than ever, Franci is inspired to focus her facilitation and bystander intervention training and teaching towards outreach of young people and families. In facilitating multiple workshops to children and teenagers in Playback and improvisational theater, Franci has engaged young people in finding more connection, empathy, and spontaneity from both telling and performing their stories. When leading Bystander Intervention Trainings, Franci seeks to engage these same core values so that participants practice taking effective action against hate and ignorance. Franci looks to help people challenge their own biases, hold helpful and nonjudgmental dialogues around standing-up for social causes, and make the commitment to this life-long practice of challenging harmful societal norms. She is currently an Arlington resident, a member of True Story Theater in Arlington, Massachusetts, and is earning her Master’s degree at Lesley University in Mental Health Counseling & Drama Therapy.
