Forge press sat down with Anna James to discuss their plans for the sustainability and development officer role. We first asked why they think the sustainability and development role is important for the SU.
Anna said: “I think sustainability is integral to the SU, not only right now but also looking into the future. We’re at a time where higher education in the UK is very rocky financially and we’ve got to be looking towards the future.”
“When you’re thinking of the SU as a business and as a registered charity for students, where that money is coming from is so important, because we can look at making sure this money is coming from somewhere ethical and that the students can be proud of.”
We also asked Anna about her manifesto, in which she wants to: “look at building bottom-up opportunities for students to learn more sustainable skills and to get more educated about sustainability.”
“I started making clothes in the pandemic and it was an eye-opening experience, because it’s actually quite difficult you can look at a piece of clothing and be like oh my goodness 20 hours of my life is into that and then you see it in the shop for a tenner maximum and it really puts things into perspective.”
Anna feels that there’s not many easy ways of accessing ways to repair your garments, to create your own items of clothing so she wants to bring these opportunities to students in a student’s union space. She said: “I’d like to put sewing machines in the swap shop and have little repair workshops so people can learn to repair rather than replace and also just to make your own clothes from scratch.”
Two years ago, Anna started at Sheffield Volunteering, working at the SU. This has allowed her to have a personal connection to the Sheffield community.
She said: “as a student city where around 11% of the population of Sheffield are students including Hallam, it can very easily kind of feel like you’re in your own little student bubble but there’s so much more to Sheffield than just being a student and volunteering programmes that are run by the likes of Sheffield Volunteering, Change Lab, the fundraising department, connect us all to the city and to the people who actually live here with lived experiences and the skills that you gain.”
We also asked why Anna thinks she would be good for the Sustainability and Development role. Anna said her first time working at the SU she was a fundraising assistant, in charge of all the financial income that was coming through clubs and societies.
She also supported students on their own fundraising initiatives and said, “it was really fun, the best part of the job was finding out what ideas everyone had come up with for events and then this year I’ve worked as a sports volunteering like program organiser.”
Anna said “you get to meet so many other sports people who are passionate about bringing sports to children. I recently organised the disability sports day which we had at Goodwin, and we had special educational need hubs around the city come and visit us and they got to try out six sports throughout the day.”
“you could just see from the staff and the kids that you’re having an impact.”
When asked about working with not just with students but a wider community, she said: “I’ve expanded the program this year to send it into local charities working with autistic children and carers together charity. Also working with Mencap twice a week, which is a charity which supports adults and children with disabilities, and we’ve recently started working with the Sheffield Deaf Children’s Society.”
“It gives you skills talking to new people, connecting with people that you don’t see hanging around pop-tarts you know it’s incredible and I’ve loved it to be honest. I found it so invaluable; it’s the city that we live in and we need to protect that and make sure we nurture our connections with people.”
