Students have been abandoned by QUB but nobody stands up for us. We’re exploited by dodgy landlords, charged full fees for online learning and left in mental health crises. Vote for a union that will fight back, running radical campaigns to make the university listen and build an active community.
WHY I AM RUNNING
During my time at QUB I’ve seen crisis after crisis hit students and their only hope was that a few individuals would be able to stop them. I’ve seen students get so disillusioned with life and assume that nothing can change.
But I’ve also seen what happens when students take actions into their own hands and fight for their own interests. I’ve seen what students, with all their skills, education and commitment, unite and work with each other to achieve. I want to be in a position where I can empower students to take action with the full backing of the Students’ Union. I want a student community that makes enough noise that QUB management and the politicians at City Hall and Stormont have to start listening to us. I want to create a Students’ Union that doesn’t just tell students what to think and do, but has a constant, open and respectful dialogue and takes direction from the student body.
A BIT ABOUT MYSELF
I’m a third year PPE student and the Part Time Environmental Officer at QUBSU. Recently, I was leading the referendum campaign to support the UCU. I was also the President of Students Together for Asylum Seekers and Refugees and a founding member of the Climate Action Group and the Student Renters’ Group. I’m one of the Member Defence Officers for the Community Action and Tenants’ Union.
However my involvement with political and community activism has been around for long before I came to university. As a teenager I volunteered with the Citizens’ Advice Bureau, helping my community when we were undergoing the worst of the benefits cuts in addition to volunteering with food and clothes banks in my area. As my area became dominated by violent far right organisations, I organised my local community to oppose them at every turn. I also travelled to the West Bank standing shoulder to shoulder with the Palestinian people as part of a human rights activist organisation.
Campaigning and engaging for me isn’t about putting on a pantomime and talking to like-minded people on twitter. It is hard work and involves talking to people that we may not agree with or even like. It’s making sure that those in power are held accountable and listen to the voices of the people they govern. I have been physically attacked, tear gassed, shot at and shoved in the back of vans at gunpoint, all for my campaigning. Every time, I stood my ground.
I will bring that same dedication to my campaigning for the student community. This is my home and my community. I am going to engage with every student to ensure they are represented and above all, encourage all students to take action when they see any issue of injustice.
MY POLICIES
FIGHT FOR REFUNDS
Over the past three years, students have been subjected to a subpar learning experience. From strikes to lockdowns, students have consistently paid the same ridiculous price for less than what QUB promised them. Refunds are not only possible, they are necessary at this stage. Not just because QUB owes it to students, but to highlight the ridiculous effects caused by the marketisation of academia. As long as universities put profit over quality, they will always fail students, and refunds are the first step to challenging this.
The question of ‘how’ is not difficult. QUB has a vast array of assets, areas of income and investments. The university each year outlines its commitment to philanthropic funding of projects in its reporting. I will organise a campaign to demand that QUB finally uses its charitable status and unrestricted income to put students, not its profits, first through refunds!
MENTAL HEALTH ACTION GROUP
The students at QUB are suffering from a massive worsening in mental health. Mental illnesses in all varieties are being untreated and the symptoms of these are ripping across the entire community. This cannot be remedied by a few people in a small room moving numbers around. This is why I will create the Mental Health Action Group in order to:
1) To organise the students to campaign for more research and funding to go towards dealing with this.
2) To equip students with the knowledge and training needed to help others by engaging with Clubs and Societies to make sure there are trained individuals in as many of them as possible.
3) To embrace an intersectional approach to mental health. We will engage with forums of women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQIA+, working class, international and disabled students to empower them to organise and campaign on the issues that affect them, allowing the relevant groups to lead in their areas with the full solidarity of others.
4) Ensure that QUB can provide a variety of mental health services. Mental illness occurs in all shapes and forms and a blanket, generalised approach is unlikely to make a genuine difference.
FIGHT RISING ACCOMMODATION FEES AND DODGY LANDLORDS
While the university maintains a monopoly over accommodation in the way that it does, it can set prices to whatever it chooses. Given the recent accommodation fiascos where students were left homeless because of management’s incompetence, it is clear that their attitudes are not professional or competent and their attitudes towards students are dismissive.
While I will consistently fight for these issues, everything I will say will be weak unless the students themselves are ready to engage. This is why I will be bringing back the Student Renters’ Group, a group that was focused on engaging with the student body to educate them on their rights as renters and allowed them to take the lead in how they wished to deal with their landlords and provide the backing of the SU to that decision. However, as CATU (the Community Action Tenants Union) exists for most private landlords, this will be focused on accommodation, which will provide more focus against the biggest landlord in the area: Queen’s University Belfast.
REDIRECT INVESTMENTS AWAY FROM HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AND INTO SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY PROJECTS
QUB has numerous investments in companies and states that are used to commit human rights violations and war crimes. From spyware that has been banned in US cities due to human rights violations being used all over the West Bank (AnyVision) to close links with arms dealers that fund military dictatorships and occupations (Thales Arms Company), QUB is happy to be complicit in death and destruction. Meanwhile, there are major issues affecting the local community that could be addressed with the resources QUB has available. The university is an anchor institution which means that it has a dedication to improving the local community. We need to bring local groups and students together to demand that Queens invest in our lives rather than death overseas.
This could be done through: investing in the creation sustainable sources of cheap food that would be democratically controlled by the community/ having these go through a food bank/ having sustainable sources of energy etc. We pay for this university, we should be campaigning to make sure our voice is heard in the manner in which money is spent.
PLATFORMING ADVOCACY GROUPS
Over the pandemic, we have seen a rise in political engagement, from the Black Lives Matter protests to the marches in solidarity with Palestine. Workers at QUB, both teaching staff and Speakeasy workers have engaged in industrial disputes with management and Irish Language Activists have put forward fantastic new proposals which would bring the indigenous language back into our lives. Incredible campaigns have been started to combat the inherent violence towards women we have in our society.
The Students’ Union needs to be an organisation which empowers all of these campaigns without ever dominating it. We need to provide a space for all groups that want to campaign for a better world and provide avenues for students who want to be involved to engage more. There needs to be constant visibility for trade unions, renters unions, and advocacy groups for all issues (from Irish Language to Antiracism) as well as education and training materials available for any student that wants to take action into their own hands and forums to discuss how different groups can build solidarity.
I feel the frustration of many students who feel that they cannot do anything about the awful nature of the world and I want to make sure every student has the knowledge and confidence to begin to make a difference.
FREE GYM
QUB made £20 million in profit over online learning. Off-Peak Gym membership for all students would be less than £5 million. Based just off the profits alone, this could pay for four years of free gym access for all students.
Physical education is incredibly important for general wellbeing. From numerous studies showing the benefits to mental health to providing the sense of community with sports teams and clubs, this could have a massive impact on the wellbeing at QUB.
I will continue to say that we pay for this university so we should have a say in how that money is spent. There is absolutely no reason that QUB should continue to make a profit off us by using the money we give them to prop up a gym we use.