Sailors and Department of Defense civilians gathered at the Naval Support Activity (NSA) Naples' Capodichino base theater Sept. 14 to participate in Sexual Assault Prevention and Response training performed and directed by the InterACT troupe.

InterACT is a nationally-renowned social justice performance troupe that began in 2000 at California State University in Long Beach, California. The group, who performed four shows while in Naples, received a contract from the Navy in June 2014 to showcase their impactful scenes of domestic violence and sexual assault to Sailors for training.

"The InterACT program is a different look on how to intervene. It's giving people an opportunity to press pause on a conflict situation and sometimes you know we have an issue and see something and we want to step in but we don't have the tools or the articulation to," said Kelly Pfleider, InterACT managing director and prime facilitator. "InterACT gives you the opportunity to see it and be able to utilize those skills and those thoughts you have in your mind, those ideas that might solve a problem and we encourage that."

Director, Department of the Navy Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, Ms. Jill Loftus, explained how service members wanted a more proactive and practical sexual assault prevention and response training that incorporated intervening techniques, which is provided by InterACT.

"Most of the training is about how to intervene in a situation and how difficult it is because we know its not easy for a young Sailor or Marine to step into a situation even if they recognize that it may be going down hill," said Loftus. "This is a staged production that's called InterACT because it's created with the audience not just for the audience. It teaches creative, interactive and safe intervention techniques."

Throughout the performance, actors from the InterACT troupe played out several scenarios that ultimately led to sexual assault and domestic violence. During their acts, the troupe invited audience members on stage to participate as either a bystander or a voice to represent the victim's inner conflict.

They've also provided this training for universities, after-school programs and rehabilitation centers since their inception. Recently, they have taken their performances to Great Lakes, Illinois at every 'A' School and have toured many installations around the fleet including Diego Garcia, Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

DON SAPRO has many new resources for Sailors and Marines including short videos about bystander intervention, what is consent and a survivor series from actual sexual assault survivors both female and male. More videos are being created on topics such as ostracism, social media, retaliation and healthy sexual relationships.

Sexual assault reporting has increased significantly in the military according to data released by the Department of Defense for 2013. The increase in reporting is believed to be the effect of commands delivering consistent and effective prevention and response methods.

For more information on sexual assault prevention contact your command representative or visit www.sapr.mil.

For more news from Commander, Navy Region Europe, Africa, Southwest Asia, visit www.navy.mil/.