Why are you running for SU President?
I decided to run because I think the SU needs a shake-up! It is also a chance to stand up for students and help out across the community! I’ve got previous experience advocating for students (as an EMA campaign organiser and as a youth worker) which puts me in a strong position to deliver a better student experience, to fight the University's school cuts, and to go after dodgy landlords. More gigs and club nights, no compulsory redundancies, and much less mould behind the sofa.
If elected, what do you intend to keep the same?
I think the current Sabb team has been working on some great stuff! I’d like to continue their work advocating for Postgrad Research students, fighting student parking bans and tackling sexual violence on campus. Everything’s a work in progress, of course, but I’ve got a lot of time for this year’s officers, and I’d be glad to pick up where they left off on those three points in particular.
If elected, what do you intend to change?
I want to see our SU standing even stronger against cuts and working with affected students. I want a focus on housing, the cost of living and the issues that face every single student at Cardiff. I’d also love the SU to seem more accessible and less intimidating to engage with! If elected, I want to have weekly office drop-ins so that students can just pop by to have a chat, whether it be to just meet me or to tell me the issues they’re facing. I want to create an online suggestion box and to do weekly Q&As on my socials. A lot of people don’t actually know what the SU does, so I’d really love to make short videos explaining who sabbatical officers even are, what things like Student Senate and AGM are and why they’re so important.
In what ways has your time at university influenced your platform in this election?
My first year was impacted a lot by strikes. I spent a fair amount of my time at protests and on pickets, and really got to know my lecturers and the issues they face. That’s why the cuts were so shocking to me and why it’s so important to me that the SU fights them. When staff lose out, so do students, and we’ve got to stand together when they’re threatened or when we are. I’m really big on housing because I’ve lived in houses with mould and rat problems (who hasn’t, right?). We had no clue how to stick up for ourselves at the time and I really wish that there were resources for students like us to stand up to our landlords! It goes further than that, the SU has more power than we think to push back against poor quality housing and extortionate rent, and we could really have done with some help when my housemates and I were in a tough spot.
When did you decide to run for the position?
I started thinking about running around Christmas time and then offically decided in the middle of January.