Remember witnessing classmates making fun of the proverbial geek or nerd and you wanted to make them stop but didn’t speak up? Years later, you can still remember the sequence of events like it was yesterday and you wince because you did nothing. Mike Dilbeck empowers students to get involved and stop the cycle of abuse by eliminating bystander behavior.
“It’s an amazing opportunity to have this rare conversation with students — one where they realize how much they want to make a difference, yet in those crucial moments, may hesitate from doing so. We all want to make a difference –to be an everyday hero to someone — yet we freeze, stay silent or simply walk away from doing what our values would have us do,” Mike Dilbeck said.
“My mission is to empower people to take actions that will make THE difference.”
Dilbeck is a filmmaker turned advocate against bystander behavior that includes bullying, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual abuse and assault, discrimination, hazing and more. He is also founder of the RESPONSE ABILITY Project and an expert on this type of behavior. He has spoken to more than 30,000 students nationwide and visited West Chester University of Pennsylvania on Monday, Oct. 24, 2011.
Dilbeck’s message is to empower people to say something when they see something wrong. He gives people the tools to feel empowered to intervene. A recent example that illustrates the cause and effect of Bystander Behavior is: a student told Dilbeck he witnessed a teen being whipped with chains.
The student could have called the police on his cell but did nothing. Later that evening, the news reported the victim had died from his injuries. Dilbeck explains that the guilt this student feels “runs deep and is something he will carry with him for the rest of his life.”
Stories like this involve bystander behavior — those times when we see or know about a crime or the situation and say nothing, do nothing. Dilbeck hopes to change this.
While there are many psychologists, psychiatrists, academics, and others to speak on the subject of bystander behavior, Dilbeck offers the average person’s perspective to this phenomenon and makes it digestible for the listener or viewer to comprehend.
Dilbeck has produced an award-winning educational program on Bystander Behavior and travels the country touching and impacting the hearts of people everywhere.
Dilbeck is a member of the National Speakers Association and has been a keynote speaker at DePaul, Carnegie Mellon, Loyola, RPI and other great universities, colleges, and conventions throughout the United States.
He has spoken and empowered thousands of college students to stop Bystander Behavior.
For information on this project visit: www.raproject.org.
Courtesy of Veronica Resa. Veronica Resa can be contacted at vresa70@hotmail.com