Forge Press spoke to Avis Azari, who is running for the role of Liberation and Activities officer in this year’s Student Union Elections. We asked them about their motivations behind applying, their plans for campaign, overall manifesto and more!
When asked about their motivation to run for this position, Avis said “I think it probably started with the Black Lives Matter movement back in 2020 but I ran away when I was 18. and I got a job and just got on with surviving. I volunteered with a charity called AKT: a queer homelessness charity. Through them I worked in queer marketing with Google and queer research with the University of Kent. This made me realise that I wanted to be more active in my communities and make a positive change.”
Avis believes the main issue affecting University of Sheffield students is “cozzy livs”, or the cost of living crisis. Elaborating on this, they told us “Everything is so expensive. Accommodation is expensive; groceries are expensive. If you want to live instead of to survive: having a night out and seeing your friends is expensive. I think, especially as uni tuition fees are rising and loans are hard to get. If you’re lucky to get all of it, but even then, a lot of us are stuck with four grand to supply for the whole year. It’s ridiculous.”
The three main points in Avis’ manifesto are “intersectionality and EDI, tackling expenses and active listening.”
When asked about their plans for campaigning, they said “I’ve been working a lot, I’m the Gender Equity SU counsellor and Gender Equity Liberation facilitator.
So I’ve been hands on deck on women’s history month. Honestly, my campaign currently, it’s going out there talking to people when I’m not working and just trying to represent everyone as best I can.”
The first thing Avis would do if they were successful in getting the role is “as basic as it is, I don’t know yet, because I really want to make sure that everyone is heard. I’ve seen data of what students want now, but if I get the role, I want to make sure that my first point of call is getting new data, hearing from people face to face before acting on what people want when I am an officer, if I’m so lucky.”
When asking Avis about their favourite things about university so far, they said “ It is really cliche, but just the people that I’ve met. I’m technically a mature student.
I’m 22 and when I ran away, I had to give up on my education. That really broke me. And when I was a young girl, I didn’t really care about my academics.
I didn’t consider myself to be very smart. But coming here, everyone has been so lovely, everyone’s been really supportive, and it’s just such a nice uplifting environment here in Sheffield.”
When we asked Avis some more light hearted questions, they told us their favourite condiments were “Three things. When I was a child I had ketchup on everything.
My parents would joke that I would have it with ice cream and honestly they weren’t that far off. When I started working in a pub, I was introduced to garlic mayo and that became my thing. But obviously, my whole personality is green. I love a bit of pesto on everything.”
