Közbelépő projekt

The "KÖZBELÉPŐ activist group" (The Bystanders) is fighting to make nightlife safe for everyone. The aim of The Bystanders project was to make nightlife safer for everyone and to raise awareness of the preventive and deterrent power of intervention against harassment. The project focused on making the phenomenon of harassment in nightlife settings more visible, promoting bystander intervention skills (5D), and reducing the acceptance of victim-blaming narratives. Its central message was that all forms of harassment are unacceptable, and that there is no place for sexism in nightlife environments.

The project encouraged witnesses of harassment to act with confidence, while working together with venues and festival organisers through educational programmes. As part of the implementation, training sessions and targeted educational modules were developed. Several participating venues revised their house rules and internal protocols based on the project’s recommendations, allowing the acquired knowledge to become embedded at an institutional level.

One of the project’s most significant outcomes was the creation of a freely accessible guide, developed on the basis of pilot trainings, festival outreach activities and feedback from participants, with the professional involvement of women’s rights organisations. The guide provides practical support for recognising and preventing harassment, as well as for developing response protocols, offering a sustainable and widely applicable tool for actors within the nightlife and festival sectors. The project proved to fill an important gap and also led to several new professional collaborations.