by JACLYN MARR, Senior Writer, & BRIGID SHEA, Contributor

The Green Dot Program at Manhattan College is making a huge impact on our community with Green Dot Training, a way for students to learn how to help others in any type of dangerous situation.

Last week, they teamed up with JustPeace in an effort to bring assault awareness to the Manhattan campus.

Green Dot is a program that promotes safety in various communities through training programs for residence of those communities. These training programs go different activities and scenarios that teach those in attendance the safe and proper ways to interfere if someone is in a dangerous situation.

Jo-Ann Mullooly, a student advocate for Green Dot, leads the training programs along with Tiffany French, the Green Dot staff advisor. The goal of Green Dot training is to try and turn everyone into more than an innocent bystander.

“What would you say to someone that saw your loved one in a dangerous situation and didn’t say or do something?” Mullooly asked. “Now what would you say to someone who did say or do something?”

Green Dot training is a building block of the push to end the violent culture that the world currently has. Mullooly used the example of Facebook creating a culture change to how Green Dot training can make a difference in the world

“When Facebook was first started, it was cool because you could take two minutes and make a profile and it created a huge culture change,” Mullooly said. “Imagine if we take two minutes to intervene in a dangerous situation to create an even bigger culture change.”

Green Dot focuses on the “Three D’s” when it comes to interfering in a dangerous situation: Direct, delegate and distract. These three options for helping provide different ways for people to help depending on the situation.

“This way everyone has a way to help,” French said. “If you’re shy or uncomfortable directly approaching the situation, you can always ask another person or create a distraction to defuse it.”

At Manhattan College, Green Dot has teamed up with many on campus clubs and groups, such as athletic teams, Greek life and JustPeace. In a partnership with Green Dot, JustPeace showed the documentary “The Hunting Ground” on campus on Tuesday and then Green Dot held a training session to follow up on Wednesday.