Hello, I’m Habib and I want to be your new YUSU president! I’m a final year Electronics student and I am fully dedicated to representing you to the best of my abilities. I am most passionate about changing YUSU so that it really it represents the students and stands with them. It shouldn’t feel separate to the student body.I want to increase students’ engagement with the union by creating a collective, empowering atmosphere to encourage a stronger York identity and enhance the student experience. I believe I’m experienced enough in societies, colleges and networks to know what YUSU needs to change and how to go about carrying out that change, from my own ideas and through consultation. I was elected president of the Palestinian Solidarity Society for two years running and I was also the international welfare rep for Vanbrugh College JCRC. I am one of the few candidates who have actually changed YUSU policy to one that represents the view of students. Last year, I was one of the main people behind a referendum that passed with over a thousand votes and won Campaign of the Year in the YUSU Awards. My policies can be summarised into 3 themes:
Community: I want to help YUSU build a strong sense of collective belonging – between students at York and across Northern universities. I want to encourage students to work together and share their interests to create a more giving atmosphere:
- YUSU should start a network for Northern universities to collaborate, give students a chance to build connections around the country and put on large scale events and conferences together.
- Support demands by students to improve the student- to- staff ratio in their departments
- Continue the work being done with the City of York Council to finally light up Walmgate Stray
- YUSU needs to communicate better with everyone on campus whether they’re students, part time officers, sports clubs, colleges or the university. We should talk about issues before they happen rather than pick up the pieces after.
- Sections on the website to make it easier for students to start a petition and easily find and contact any officer, course rep or staff member they need
- Getting some microwaves for various places in canteens and common rooms
- To make YUSU a Green Union by gathering funds to start a green energy campaign and by supporting existing ones on campus
- Put on good de-stress events during the exam periods like yoga , puppies, and giving out free healthy food
- I’ll have a weekly blog to show students what I get up to on a day-to-day basis. Liberty:
- Panels not Platforms. The university should be a place for debate and learning, and the free expression of controversial opinions is part of this. YUSU should support societies that want to bring in speakers for debates. However, that does not mean that the university doesn’t need to consider its responsibility to be aware of the power dynamic it creates when giving a speaker a platform. Where controversial speakers are invited, we should work to also support the voices of those holding opposing opinions – through creating panels and allowing extended question and answer time for debate. Given that the campus is a place of residence, there is also a place for trigger/content warnings and some place for censorship in the case where hate speech poses a threat to the physical or mental health of students. The wellbeing of students is paramount.
- YUSU should oppose the government’s Prevent strategy that promotes stereotyping and clamps down on free speech
- Give more support and recognition to the part time officers and publicise their events widely – liberation networks do important work unpaid that is often not recognised, as do the other part time officers
- YUSU should be fully dedicated to transparency and have all of its documents (apart from those containing people’s personal information) publicly available in one place. I want to see YUSU give students a better understanding of its internal workings and how its officers help shape university policy as well as consulting more students on the various decisions its officers make
- Work with the Academic Officer and Careers to provide more varied employment opportunities and more information on potential employers to students
Empowerment:
- I will schedule weekly open hours where students can drop-in to talk to me about any issues or concerns they have
- Provide students with guides on how to submit policies
- Support women with a ‘HeForShe’ campaign to strengthen the fight for women’s rights and show that equality can only be achieved if all parts of society work together.
- Start a campaign to encourage students to talk about mental health, especially after last year’s York Student Think Tank consultation revealed that over 50% of service users on campus felt that they had not benefitted from the service they used.
- YUSU should hold drop in sessions with professionals for students suffering from mental health issues and for those who want to learn how to support them.
- Mental health services on campus should be advertised from a more centralised system and a proper feedback system put in place
- I want to see YUSU hold more affordable workshops for students in first aid, how to organise large-scale events and how to deal with sensitive issues like culture and mental health
- YUSU should do whatever it can to support its medical students to stand against the changes relating to junior doctors
- I want to support students entrepreneurs by providing more resources for their start-ups
Provide more funding for societies wishing to invite external speakers (according to the panels not platforms policy stated above) as well as to sports clubs who wish to organise inter-university events
If you want to see the face of change, than please vote Habib for Prez!
