Tuesday 25-04-2017 - 08:31

After many years of holding our NUS delegate elections in Ephiphany term, this year Durham SU changed the election timeframe to allow for our delegates to be involved into NUS policy and democratic nature of NUS. We're thrilled that this year, we've seen delegates from Durham SU submit three policies for consideration at Conference and one delegate standing to be National President. We'll be bringing you profiles of our elected delegates so you can find out more about NUS Conference before it is held in Brighton on Tuesday 25 April and Thursday 27 April 2017. 

My election platform was in liberation and student welfare, and my main priorities at conference are to make sure this is the focus of my policy and election voting decisions. I have a lot of experience working with NUS and have been Women's place on the Disabled Students Committee for the last year. Through this I have been very involved with both the Disabled and Women Students Campaigns and have given workshops on supporting sex workers in our unions, making feminist spaces more accessible, spoke on a panels about intersectionality, produced resources on supporting disabled survivors of sexual and domestic violence and spoke at unions on reproductive rights and sex and relationship education. 

The policy I am taking to conference is motion 603 in making NUS itself and its events more accessible to disabled students. For many minority and marginalised students there are real barriers to participating in NUS as an organisation, but for disabled students like me those barriers are often physical ones and deeply rooted in the culture within NUS and the behaviours of people involved. This motion has used the experiences of disabled students from a variety of open letters and has a lot of practical measures of how NUS can improve its events in order to enable the participation of disabled students.

In terms of motions I am looking forward to, I am particularly interested in motion 213. Through my involvement with the students with disabilities association in Durham, fit to study policies are a big issue we are facing in Durham at the moment and I would be interesting in seeing NUS take an official stance. I am also looking forward to motion 406 on culturally competent mental healthcare. Minority students experience mental health conditions at higher proportions, and often treatment available within FE and HE is not competent for their needs, most specifically for BME and LGBT+ students. The motion has a few really great amendments too and is generally a really detailed motion about how to lobby effectively for a culturally competent mental health support framework within our education institutions and the NHS. 

I am also excited to hear debates on motions 305 and 601. Motion 305 is about whether NUS officers should be allowed to publically endorse political parties which will be really interesting given the recent announcement of a snap general election. Motion 601 is a restructure of NUS's democracy and has 16 amendments and I'm sure it will be an interesting and heated debate about the ways in which our officers are voted for and the reorganisation of roles within NUS. 

There are also lots of great candidates for the roles available within NUS and I'm excited to see the policies candidates have and how these fit with what Durham students want and need. 

You can find out more about NUS Conference here.