Friday, January 08, 2010
An exciting New Year for the STAR network
STAR groups look back on their successes last term in 2009 and state their ambitions for 2010!
Barts
Our biggest achievement was… the successful establishment of new homework club.
Our main aim for this year is… to increase number of volunteers and awareness of society.
Birmingham
Our biggest achievement was… the Guild Council passed a motion on ‘Equal Access to Higher Education Campaign’ in October 2009!
Our main aims for this year are…
Campaigning: Question Time Debate (Tues 26th January), which offers students a unique opportunity to quiz panellists on ‘Britain’s Tough Asylum System’. Speakers include representatives from Refugee Council, Coventry Peace House, Labour Society and Conservative Society.
Post-Debate, we plan to work on launching the campaign and spreading the word on campus – need to come up with some innovative ideas!! We aim to liaise with Guild Officers and write a letter to the Vice-Chancellor.
Volunteering: Homework Club. We would like to extend this to outreach work in local schools (e.g. talks etc) if we had enough skills and volunteers amongst us.
Brighton
Our biggest achievement was… Getting together and making a great stall at fresher’s fair with new sign ups, and great discussions about the work of STAR. And our ‘Do your bit donate your kit’ Male clothing collection over equality and diversity week. There were at least 6 bin liners full of good quality clothes; I hope the Slipknot hoodie goes down well!
Our main aim for this year is… Getting together to make an awareness raising film for the charity Gatwick Detainee Welfare Group, in hope to have it ready for Refugee week… Any budding film makers out there with any tips would be greatly received!
Bristol
Our biggest achievements were… filling the lecture theatre for ‘Home Truths’ and having too many prospective volunteers for the Welcome Centre!
Our main aim for this year is… making sure everyone who wants to volunteer is involved with a project and getting the vice-chancellor to make changes to the university’s policy on asylum seekers.
Essex
Our biggest achievement was… structuring the foundation for the re-birth of Essex STAR!
Our main aims for this year are… host a picnic with refugee women, fundraisers, poster campaign to raise awareness of the facts and continuing the Equal Access petition.
Hull
Our biggest achievement was… to get the conversation classes up and running despite a few hiccups along the way and looking forward to next semester when the classes should hopefully continue.
Our main aim for this year is… to carry on the classes and branch out to do more fundraising and awareness raising as well as establishing a mentoring project for student volunteers.
Leeds
Our biggest achievements were… a big fundraiser showing Asylum Dialogues raising £246.50 and getting so many new volunteers.
Our main aims for this year are…
- continuing the Citizens for Sanctuary housing campaign – collecting testimonies, doing the conference etc, developing our work with WAST
- setting up Journey to Safety in local schools, a fun simulation of the journey of a refugee
- making a cookbook as a fundraiser (recipes being collected as we speak)
- stall at LGBT history month
- get some articles in the paper and develop the new link with a media group whose aim is to promote positive press for asylum seekers (media rep currently on the case)
- do at least one other fundraiser
Liverpool
Our biggest achievements were… re-establishing conversation club, making links/contacts with other organisations.
Our main aims for this year are… to raise awareness and establish projects with Sola Arts.
Nottingham
Our biggest achievements were… Getting a lot of new students helping out at the Tuesday Night Project (a social evening at Nottingham Refugee Forum) and being able to expand the work there to have a pottery workshop and a digital art workshop. We also had an Afghan party which was well attended and helped to build up links with that community and the Afghan society at University.
Our main aims for this year are… To run a campaign in the spring term and be more active in raising awareness on campus. To hopefully get more ethnic societies involved in the work in the Tuesday Night project such as Arabic, Iranian and Tamil society and get them to run one of the evenings.
Sheffield
Our biggest achievements were… successfully recruiting new members and introducing them to all of the different organisations which support asylum seekers and refugees in Sheffield. The Sponsored Walk was also very successful.
Our main aims for this year are… to organise more events which promote positive images of refugees on campus. Many of our events were off campus this term because of the weather and building work on the concourse. Among events we have planned for next term are a SleepOut on the Concourse to raise money for ASSIST and a play highlighting issues facing asylum seekers.
Southampton
Our biggest achievements were… recruiting and keeping new members and the LiNK film event.
Our main aims for this year are… more awareness raising events on campus such as a music night and a talk by CARA (Council for Assisting Refugee Academics).
St George’s
Our biggest achievement was… helping KKF run all the projects smoothly and some good very good fundraising efforts.
Our main aims for this year are… to build on the successes of the previous term and to do better in terms of volunteer recruitment and retention.
Warwick
Our biggest achievement was… getting first year volunteers for the Center for Equality and Diversity as well as the Peace House. While not that many of them are registered members of the STAR society, we were able to encourage a significant number of people to start volunteering at these organizations. Last academic year, the society had trouble in the first term getting volunteers, especially amongst freshmen but the situation has improved this year.
Our main aims for this year will be… increasing our awareness raising activities and hopefully at least one fund-raising activity. On January 21st, we have an event planned with the Debating society on ‘Access to Higher Education for Asylum Seekers’ which will also involve a dinner and an asylum-related movie. We also hope that we will have a speaker from CARA (Council for Assisting Refugee Academics) and a local MP to come up to campus to speak about asylum issues (not at the same time necessarily). We will also be collaborating with Amnesty International and Project Ayuda during ‘themed-weeks’ like Human Rights Week, Refugee Week and Party in the Piazza.
Posted by James Fisher on 08/01/2010 at 11:47 AM
in Group News
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