Perth and Kinross Council – Bystander Training

On Tuesday 21st February, MEND’s Head of Community delivered an Active Bystander Training session to Perth and Kinross Council staff. During this session, attendees were introduced to the concept of being an active bystander vs an ordinary bystander with regard to incidents of Islamophobia – the key distinction being that active bystanders make a positive impact to step in and help the victim(s) of attacks, while always safeguarding themselves and being non-confrontational to the perpetrator.

This interactive session allowed participants to engage with the presentation and allowed for an engaging discussion on how Islamophobia manifests in society. Council staff were presented with several different scenarios which described various incidents of Islamophobia, including in-person public attacks as well as discriminatory statements made by politicians. Attendees were then invited to share ideas about responding when witnessing such behaviour. The group then reflected on the MEND guidance provided and made suggestions about steps we can all make in our daily lives to stand up for the rights of others.

MEND would like to thank Perth and Kinross Council for inviting us to lead this session, we would also like to extend our thanks to everyone who attended for their contributions to the discussion.

Image credit:
Robin Fernandes, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons