Voices Against Violence is a ground-breaking video that addresses the critical role bystanders - both adults and youths - can play in preventing school violence. It explores the dilemmas bystanders face and calls on viewers to consider ways their school community can encourage and support positive bystander intervention.

Five short, dramatic vignettes are each presented by "the bystander," a boy or girl of middle-school age who confronts a violent or potentially violent situation and then must decide how to respond. Will the bystander intervene directly or indirectly to prevent violence, or step back and watch as violence takes place? The decision is rarely clear-cut, as the bystander struggles with such complex issues as loyalty, friendship, fear of reprisal, uncertainty about the seriousness of the situation, and lack of clarity about what to do and whom to approach for help. The moral and emotional evolution of the bystander is charted on the screen as the student grapples with the decision to intervene.

Produced and Directed by Jesse Moss.
Narrated by Miss America 2003, Erika Harold.

A Mile End Films production in association with EDC and the Columbia University Center for Youth Violence Prevention, Mailman School of Public Health, with funding by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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