Last week we met the candidates for this year’s Liberation Officer role to get to know a little about them and their reasons for running for this position. The candidates this year are: Jagoda Bilarzewska, Jasmine Malee, Kaydian Payne, Mia Benn-Walsh and Tomas Rocha. Unfortunately, we did not get to talk to all the candidates; however you can read their full manifestos online.
Voting starts on Monday 13th at 10am and closes on Thursday 16th. Keep your eyes peeled for the results that will be posted on Friday 17th.
So first off, is there anything you have achieved that you are proud of or anything that helps you with the role of liberation officer?
Tomás Rocha Lawrence: “Since year one, something that’s been a real passion for me, as an autistic student, is the Disability Champions. Since my first year up until now, I’ve been a part-time Disability Champion. They work with the DDSS to help integrate students for support and stuff. As soon as I met them I realised that would be the perfect job for me to do, it genuinely did feel really rewarding to sort of pass the torch onto me and help students every single year. I’ve also been part of Ice-Skating Society, and I’m currently part of the canoe club, and they’re just the nicest, most interesting people I’ve ever met.
“I have a lot of diverse policies and policies that can apply to students across liberation groups, and something that is very near and dear to me is support for disabled students. I think that my knowledge and expertise in that would make me great for that role. Students from every single department, from freshers to PhDs, come up to me and say things like “oh, I think I might be dyslexic, is there support for that?” – the Disability Champion role has been my window into other departments, to see what’s good and what’s bad and what needs changing in the SU.”
Kaydian Payne: “The whole reason I chose my degree is because I’m really interested in liberation and working to uplift marginalised voices. While at university, I’ve worked on the politics and international relations diversity and inclusions committee which worked on projects from making sure that people’s pronoun use has been properly implemented to more abstract things such as how best can we work as students and staff to help decolonize the curriculum.
“I’ve worked on the BAME committee here where we were looking at the new race relations report and then also I’ve done kind of more things in wider society so I worked in Leamington where I’m from making care packages for homeless people.”
Jagoda Bilarzewska: “From what I’ve achieved, I’m really proud of the stuff I’m doing for the SU, and how engaged I am. I’ve been a part of Global Campus for over two years. I also have loads of experience – this is my fourth year here.
“I’m an international student, who’s here on my own, and I went through taking a leave of absence, through mental health issues and I feel like I’ve just experienced loads of little things that are difficult for students and especially the Liberation group, that could be improved and basically from my experience through the years, there are so many of these little things and when I noticed I was like ‘I might as well try to change it through the council and my committees.”
Mia Benn-Walsh: “I’ve become much more confident since joining university, being able to join different societies, clubs and making so many different friends has been something that makes me really happy.
“Being able to continue my studies in Sociology at degree level is something that has been very important to me, I’ve been studying it academically since I was 14. Sociology is the discipline which educates about social differences and the relevance of social hierarchies and social power in everyday life.
“I currently work in a leadership role, helping international students secure their place at UK universities. I help prepare the students with a mock interview before they take their official University interview.
“Being in charge of this role is a privilege to me, seeing the difference that I can make raising students’ confidence. Witnessing the difference you can make to someone’s life, helping to navigate them through the education system is extremely rewarding, and something that I want to further expand on at my own University.”
Elaborate on your manifesto.
Tomás: “The common thing that ties all the policies together is just how achievable I think they are. For one, in terms of building exposure about support across the university, I’m currently in talks with the DDSS as part of my job as a Disability Champion and our only solution there would be just to have more events. There are so many events where people will be like “I’ve never seen you before” and I’m like “well, we need to have more of them”.
“I think one issue that disabled students face is learning support plans. They contain things like extra exam time, individual rest breaks, and that sort of thing. Every student is different and I think in some cases departments end up ignoring that learning support plan. I’m in this position where I think I’m comfortable speaking to disability coordinators in my department, but then you get other students that just aren’t, and they end up just trying to like power through it and really suffer.
“Students across different liberation groups have all come to me with a specific barrier to support that they’ve encountered, but they have no idea who to approach and how to solve it. So, I want a clear open-door policy – I know other Liberation Officers in the past have done this sort of thing. And, on a bi-weekly basis, hire out an individual room where a student can book a slot, or if they don’t feel comfortable they could use a suggestion box.
“My next idea is to create Sheffield’s first standardised support network, because like I said, Sheffield’s support is amazing when it’s organised. Essentially what I want to do is to create an online correspondence between academic representatives in every department. So you have the disability liaison officers and the coordinators in one group.”
Kaydian: “So, the first one is about the cost-of-living crisis. Obviously, everyone knows it’s literally insane at the moment and what I want to talk about is that this is an issue for all students, but it’s also really disproportionately affecting marginalised groups because, for example, if you are disabled, you have so many costs that have gone up so much more in ways that people aren’t going to necessarily think about.
“And then you’ve also got the issue of just like general students. A lot of people are now being affected who weren’t affected before or maybe weren’t recipients of bursaries before but now their situation has changed just because the situation in the country’s changed.
“I really want to work on empowering the student Liberation committees we have – like the BAME committee, LGBTQ committee, women’s officer, international officer, mature students officer – and I really want to work on making those committees more accessible to general students. Basically just really encouraging students to get involved and have their say and not feel the pressure of commitment and kind of get rid of the hierarchies in them because it’s really hard to fight against hierarchical systems of oppression in a situation where you’re in a hierarchy of a power structure.
“And then there’s increasing sustainability which is going to be focused mainly on the university policy. So we are already quite a sustainable uni; Sheffield does loads of good stuff, but we can always be doing better; again, the climate crisis is something that is affecting everyone. It’s arguably the most important issue that we face today is the, you know, university out of the general human population.”
Jagoda: “So, my kind of big thing that I want the SU to achieve is to make the SU a place that people can trust and people get help from, and that is something I think is especially about the Liberation group, cause they struggle. They might live far from home, they might have parents or be in contact with parents, and even if they are, they’re here, they’re students, it’s a difficult thing to be, and they need the SU to be always there behind them. I want to focus on students from low income backgrounds who have to work to afford university, or who are maybe mature students, who have kids, who are commuting.
“I’m very much aware the SU isn’t immune to inflation but making cheaper alternatives to meals would be great. We can just make something simple so students can eat something warm, that’s not going to ruin their budget.
“I work in Interval and I see there is loads of food there, really nice, but expensive. Make some cheaper alternatives, make a soup or something like that, you don’t have to make money on that. Make sure people can eat something warm during the day.”
Mia: “I think my policies are extremely important in ensuring equal opportunities for the minority and the majority at Sheffield University.
“My policy about an anonymous forum for students to express their opinions is an idea that helps those who may feel anxious or worried about any problems or barriers that they may face. Using this anonymous forum will ensure SU officers can provide all different kind of help for students who may, for any valid reason, feel uncomfortable sharing their personal information to officers.
“It allows for people to express their thoughts and feelings without the worry of their identity being shared. I want students to feel comfortable talking to SU officers about their experiences at the University, helping to implement the most effective policies for current students.
“For example, this policy could work in relation to the spiking that happens to many female students, even at SU nights where students should feel safest. Through this anonymous forum, students would be able to talk about their experiences of spiking, how they think the SU could improve the fight against spiking and any other details they would like to share, trying to make uncomfortable situations easier to talk about.”
Why do you think that you are fit for this role?
Tomás: “As a Liberation Officer, I could promise to cure world hunger, but I would be lying. I fully understand that I have no idea how to run a sociology department for example, but what I do know is that academic representatives in charge of that know how to solve the problem, they just need to communicate with each other. Students can come to me through the open-door policy and I can take problems to the academic representative group, and they can systematically solve it across departments. I’ve essentially been planning this for my entire five-year degree, how to get support for students.
As a Disability Champion, I could say that my entire degree has prepared me for this role, but as an autistic student, who has suffered barriers to participation and marginalisation, in many ways – without sounding too pompous – I do genuinely think I am born for this role, and I’m genuinely so excited just to see like not only the student feedback that I’ve been getting that has been amazing in the short time I’ve been campaigning, I’ve only been campaigning for about two hours and I’ve learnt more than I ever could have alone, and I just think having the capacity of a Liberation Officer would allow me to help an entire university of students and that makes me feel wholesome.”
Kaydian: “I’ve got lots of experience in this, this is something I’m very passionate about: liberations on a university level, on a wider scale, is what I kind of want to do with my life. So, I’m really, really passionate about this.
“As a mixed-race black woman who comes from a single-parent family, I really understand how different marginalised identities can change and impact your situation, especially at university – I’ve seen that. So I’m coming from a really good position to help students. I think I’m quite approachable as well, I think I could really make a difference in making students feel like it’s a really inclusive space.
“And I love Sheffield, I love the university. I really want to dedicate myself to the university, I’ve had a good experience here. I want everyone to have a really good experience and I think Sheffield just should be like a safe space for all students.”
Jagoda: “I’ve been at the university for four years, and during those four years I’ve met so many people. I’m a Global Campus student, I’m an international student, and I’m a working student. I think I can put all that experience together, the experience from all the people I’ve met to improve what can be improved. The SU and the University are a good place, but I want to make sure everyone has access to it. I want to be a big sister to everyone, and I feel like I can do that.”
Mia: “I’m extremely passionate about fighting against social issues that many people face today. Being a woman I understand the feeling that many students face when it comes to discrimination. A liberation officer is a role which entails pushing the rights of those from marginalised backgrounds, and truly listening and understanding to what students are going through, no matter what their background or situation is. I want to give back to the community of students that have treated me with so much respect and love.”
“With my degree in Sociology, and my current work experience with students from a variety of backgrounds, I think the liberations officer role couldn’t come at a better time!”
Why should people vote for you?
Tomás: “I have policies that apply to every student in every department across all years, and I am committed to listening to all students.”
Kaydian: “Vote for me for a better students’ union and a students’ union that supports you.”
Jagoda: “Because I know how it feels to be overlooked and left alone, and I don’t want anyone to be like that.”
Mia: “Vote to see the difference that you can make when voting for me!”