Forge Press sat down with Amelia Litchfield to talk about her role as liberations and Activities Officer. We first asked why they applied for the Liberation and Activities officer role at the SU.
Amelia said: “I got an email one day about someone nominating me to run for Liberation Activities Officer because they thought that I would be a good fit for the role with my experience as Social Secretary of Sociology Society last year and this year I’m the President, so they nominated me to run.”
She also said: “from the activities side, I’ve got the knowledge of knowing what it’s like being in a society and the working relationship that societies have with the SU.”
When asked about her manifesto Amelia said: “from a liberations aspect I want to protect student protesters’ voice because I think protesting is a fundamental part of your free speech and the university is doing quite the opposite, coming at student protesters, where if anything they should be meeting it with kindness and encouraging it and facilitating it.”
Amelia also wants to bridge the gap between international and home students because as President of Sociology Society she has been invited to meetings with the sociology department about how a lot of international students in the student’s union environment and in academic environments feel othered.
In terms of the cost of living crisis Amelia believes the Student’s Union could be doing a lot more to help students with the crisis. She said, “societies go to Roar and Pop Tarts for their socials and the money here and there stacks up and for a lot of people and they can’t afford that, so then they’re not going to these socials and as a result of that they feel ostracised and not able to make connections with people in their societies.”
Amelia wants to combat this issue by lowering the cost of foundry events because, “if people are feeling isolated then that’s going to have a direct impact on their mental health.”
One of Amelia’s other policies on mental health is that there needs to be more wellbeing workshops, and a restructuring of missed attendance consequences, especially for international students because, “they will be like threatened to be kicked out of the Uni if they don’t attend classes and if they’re feeling like they can’t afford it because their fees are so high they can’t afford to go on these socials, obviously their mental health is going to deteriorate.”
Amelia also wants “a zero tolerance policy on discrimination of any kind.” And to make sure all “SU events that we’re doing need to be sustainable, accessible and cost affordable, fully disabled access.”
Forge then asked Amelia why they think they would be good for the role. Amelia said: “I’m an easy person to talk to but sometimes I feel like it seems a bit intimidating talking to someone you don’t know, I want to make things more accessible because in this role I would be the facilitator between the students and the students union.”
Forge also asked how Amelia’s experience’s as part of the Sociology committee has given her the necessary skills for the Liberation and Activities role. She said: “me and a friend made a course group chat in first year, where we’d all go on nights out and then from then on like people made connections and friends. Kind of like an unofficial sociology society.”
“I feel like that sort of kick started something and then I actually applied for the role of social secretary and then the president last year suggested I run for president for this year and I got it.”
Amelia’s experience as president and social secretary has given her good relationships with students, academic departments and the SU because she has “sorted the last two trips abroad and this year it was a joint trip with psychology, so I had to navigate and collaborate to figure that all out.”
