I'm running for VP Liberation, International & Postgraduates to lead inclusive campaigns, shape equality policies, and support all students via awareness months and trustee oversight. As your voice, I'll ensure fair access, wellbeing, and unity across QMUL. Together, let's thrive!
An honest Union that mirrors us should make liberation, international experience, the postgraduate realities the central focus of its daily work, not only in addresses or special weeks. I am standing to be Vice President Liberation, International & Postgraduates so that we can take our diversity as real power that makes policy, makes wellbeing better and changes the way Queen Mary treats its students. As a global graduate student, I am aware of the stress of visa requirements, tuition and fees, studies and solitude, and I would like to transform that lived experience into tangible transformation in the lives of the entire generation.
My vision is plain and simple, a Union in which liberation is non-negotiable, international students are regarded as full partners, not sources of revenue, and postgraduate needs are not an addition, but as distinct. Liberation refers to making the voices of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic, Disabled, LGBTQ+, and Women and other oppressed students the focus of the campaign, decision-making and funding, rather than inviting them to talk with them once in a year. It can be defined as the ultimate resistance to any form of harassment, discrimination and hate, and as the demand to have a campus where safety and dignity are the new norm and not luxuries.
As an elected person, I will advocate on more transparent, rapid and trauma-informed measures to report racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, caste-based discrimination and religious hatred. I will champion obligatory, vocational equality and inclusion training of the personnel as well as frontline services and Union campaigns that incorporate liberation perspectives in an essential manner. I would like heritage and history months to be student led, intersectional and resource intensive, to not only celebrate culture but address structural injustice, as well.
As an international student, I will struggle towards equity, nurturing and a sense of belonging. That involves lobbying against unfair hall fees and unseen costs, advocating an increased hardship fund which can be availed to international students, and having a clear communication on the issue of cost of living. I will collaborate with advice and careers service to provide frequent and accessible workshops are visas, working hours and post-study route, and give events that are sensitive to international students time zone, work limits and future plans. Being part of will not be diminished to a single welcome week; I will endorse long-term buddy plans, cross-cultural activities and increased support to international societies.
Even postgraduate taught and research students should be provided with structures that acknowledge the workloads, roles and aspirations. I will promote improved standards of supervision, better routes of escalation of PGRs and I will schedule so that commuting, caring and part-time employment can be taken into consideration. I will focus on better mental health services that are conscious of postgraduate pressures, more consecrated postgraduate spaces, and equitable remuneration and terms of the teaching PGRs.
I will make myself visible, accessible, accountable, and have frequent drop-in sessions, open Progress reports and actual collaboration with student reps and societies. Vote me, and we will all create a Union that does not only talk about equality and inclusion, but provides them in practice.