Last month, Tower Hamlets celebrated the women and groups who have worked hard to help balance the gender scales and amplifying the voices of women in the Tower Hamlets community. The Women’s Awards ceremony brought together residents, organisations and local leaders to recognise the care, advocacy and impact across the borough.
Last month, Tower Hamlets celebrated the women and groups who have worked hard to help balance the gender scales and amplifying the voices of women in the Tower Hamlets community. The Women’s Awards ceremony brought together residents, organisations and local leaders to recognise the care, advocacy and impact across the borough.
There were over 90 nominations, but we want to spotlight one nominee: your Students’ Union President, Diya Mary Selastin. Nominated for three awards (including Gender Equity Champion and Civic Contribution of the Year), Diya was awarded highly commended for Young Woman of the Year, which shines a light on the young women who are excellent role models for the future generation of leaders.
Those who nominated Diya wrote:
“At 20, Diya became President of Queen Mary Students’ Union, representing over 30,000 students as the youngest President in recent history and the first international student to hold the role.”
“In 2026, Diya led Queen Mary’s first cross-campus Women’s Week alongside Madhura and Divyani, delivering 13 events across two weeks, focused on women’s safety, consent, sexual health, leadership representation, and wellbeing. The programme included sexual health drop-in clinics, activism workshops, women in leadership panels, and creative wellbeing spaces designed to empower students and foster community. [...] Diya also connected the Students' Union with the Tower Hamlets Women's Commission for the first time, ensuring university women were represented in borough-level discussions on public safety and gender equity.”
“Her work has been recognised through multiple university awards, including Student Councillor of the Year, Outstanding Contribution, and Student Wellbeing Champion. Nationally, she was nominated for the UKCISA Community Impact Award and the Grow Mentoring Diversity Advocate of the Year Award for her work supporting international and minority women.” 
On her own work this year, Diya says:
“My key priorities this year have been student safety, gender equality and women’s wellbeing on campus. I have worked closely with SAHA (Queen Mary’s Sexual Assault and Harassment Advice Service) to strengthen awareness, prevention, and support surrounding consent and gender-based violence.”
“Following the introduction of new Office regulation on tackling and preventing harassment and sexual misconduct in higher education, I helped promote Queen Mary’s consent module, which was made mandatory this year, through awareness campaigns, targeted communications, and student outreach initiatives. Through this work, over 65% of first-year students completed the module during its first year of implementation, a completion rate higher than that achieved by many universities across the sector.”
Alongside this, Diya worked closely with the University's safety teams and student support services to foster a more informed, supportive and safer campus environment for all students. And on a broader scale, she supported the Russell Group Students' Unions' national survey on gender-based violence across UK campuses, as well as their campaign for calling misogyny to be legislated as a hate crime, promoting the national initiative across Queen Mary and the wider Tower Hamlets community. The petition has recently surpassed 100,000 signatures and will now be debated in Parliament.
Diya's work with her community didn't begin with her role as Students' Union President. Previously, she relaunched Women in Law Society as Co-President, after the society was inactive for two years. Under her leadership, the society grew to nearly 100 active members within six months, delivered around 30 events in one academic year, launched a free mentorship programmed through ConnectVerse and collaborated with leading law firms and chambers to widen access to competitive legal careers. The Society received three Students' Union Honours Awards for Inclusion, Diversity and Communication.
Her nomination concludes with: "At 21, Diya's impact spans institutional reform, grassroots community building, civic engagement, and service access. Through every role she has held, she has remained committed to creating safer, more inclusive spaces for women and underrepresented students across her university and the wider Tower Hamlets community." And we could not have said it better ourselves!
The Women's Awards is an annual event and is vital in celebrating the work done by women and local groups, as well as share great ideas for change and inspire more community involvement. Join us in congratulating Diya for being nominated and highly commended – and we can’t wait to see more QMSU involvement in the awards in the future.
