Hi, we’re Madhura and Divyani, 4th year medical students and your Women’s Reps for this year. We’re so excited to celebrate Women’s Week with you!
Hi, we’re Madhura and Divyani, 4th year medical students and your Women’s Reps for this year. We’re so excited to celebrate Women’s Week with you!
We took on this role because we care deeply about representation, safety, and creating spaces where women feel heard and supported. For us, this isn’t just about organising events, although we absolutely doing that too. It’s about attending meetings, pushing for change, collaborating across societies, and making sure women’s voices are present in every room that matters.
We believe representation should be visible, proactive, and meaningful. From planning exhibitions to attending faculty meetings, from collaborating with societies to working with the Students’ Union, we’ve tried to approach this role with intention and action.
Planning the first large-scale Women’s Week alongside QMSU President Diya has easily been one of the highlights of the our year. Creating something bigger, more coordinated, and more impactful for our community has been incredibly rewarding. This role has shown us that change happens both in public spaces and behind the scenes, and we’re so grateful to be part of a community that cares as much as we do.
If you ever want to raise an issue, or share an idea, our inbox is always open at women@bartslondon.com
An Interview with Madhura and Divyani
Q: Who are you, and what does being Women’s Reps involve?
A: We’re Madhura and Divyani, your Women’s Reps for this year, and our role is all about making women visible, supported, and heard across campus. This includes organising events, coordinating with societies, running wellbeing campaigns, and engaging with faculty and the wider community. It also involves taking part in the quieter but essential work behind the scenes, including, safeguarding, training, and advocacy, so that students feel safe and supported year-round.
Q: What have been some highlights so far?
One highlight was participating in the Lady Mayor Parade with the Dame Commander Society. It was a great opportunity to celebrate women’s achievements and show representation in a wider community setting. Another was organising the Surviving in Scrubs speaker event for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. It was a powerful session that sparked important conversations about misogyny in healthcare and gave students practical tools for empowerment.
And of course, planning the first large-scale Women’s Week with QMSU President Diya has been a major achievement. Coordinating multiple societies and events for the first time has helped lay a strong foundation for Women’s Week to grow in future years.
Q: What other work have you done this year?
We recently held a student engagement session with the Tower Hamlets Women’s Commission. The aim was to bring students’ voices directly into discussions about issues affecting women in the borough. We facilitated the collection of feedback on safety, access to services, and wellbeing initiatives, and shared students’ perspectives on what matters most to them. It was a unique opportunity to influence local decision-making and make sure that student experiences were represented in real-world policy discussions.
We’ve also completed a variety of initiatives behind the scenes. We’ve attended Athena SWAN faculty meetings (a framework for higher education institutions to recognise and promote gender equality), and ran a Breast Cancer Awareness campaign in October. Collaborating with other societies, we set up an exhibition in Garrod and supported the “Pink for Hope” event, to create a space for conversation, education, and solidarity. Alongside the talk for the International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women, we also collaborated with Women in Healthcare Society to plan a self-defence class to give students practical skills for personal safety.
Q: Why does this work matter?
This work matters because it helps ensure that women have a voice and feel supported in all areas of campus life. It’s about more than events, it’s about creating structures, channels, and opportunities that make it easier for students to speak up, access support, and engage with the issues that affect them.
By working across societies, faculty, and the wider community, we aim to make women’s perspectives part of ongoing conversations rather than isolated moments. It helps ensure that issues affecting women are recognised, addressed, and acted on, rather than overlooked, and laying foundations for long-term change.
Q: What’s next?
The immediate focus is delivering Women’s Week: making it engaging, meaningful, and collaborative. Beyond that, alongside Diya, we’re lobbying to make Women’s Week an official liberation campaign to establish it for years to come. Our goal is simple: to ensure women are visible, supported, and empowered, not just for one week, but throughout the year.