Forge Press sat down with Prateek Dubey who is running for the role of Wellbeing and Sport officer in this year’s Student Union Officer elections. We asked him about his campaign.
When asked what motivated him to apply for his role and he said: “I love sports and when I came to this Uni, I joined a sports club and I felt like the inclusion and the affordability somehow made me choose between the sports that I have loved for my entire life or my means,
“When I looked deeper into it you will see that even a beginner friendly session costs somewhere around £5- £8 for a single session which is a meal for some students.”
Prateek has also drawn on his experience with being the only person of colour in the team, which made him feel like he wasn’t welcomed: “You are more tolerated.. there is not enough representation, there is not enough communication or the feeling of belonging over there.”
When asked what he thinks is the main issue affecting students he said the cost of sporting clubs: “Sports is not just for athletes, sports is for everybody and right now when we look at sports it also adds up some costs for the students and it is not helping them but building more stress and more pressure.”
His manifesto can be summarised by three points: affordability, inclusion and belonging. He wants to make sport available for everybody- especially people from different backgrounds, specially abled people and people of different genders.
To do this, if he were successful, Prateek said: “I will push for more transparency in the system and I will push for more representation in the system, I will look at the project heads and I will try to look at what’s efficient where the funding is utilised. Rather than 6 people paying for £250 membership I will push for 100 people paying for a £100 membership fee.”
Prateek Dubey expressed his passion for helping marginalised people, making people feel welcome and creating a space where they can use sports to feel better and reduce the stress that their studies place on them.
Over the next week you might see Prateek in your community talking about his plans to bring more support and accessibility to sports within the University of Sheffield.
