We know that Universities were created and built on colonialism, which has shaped and continues to shape our education system.
‘Decolonise City’ is not just a buzzword. It’s an anti-racist campaign aiming to centre Black and minoritized students at the heart of our institution. We aim to bring to light a decolonial perspective, which we believe is essential to anti-racist work and take a systemic approach for a systemic problem.
We understand that we cannot decolonise City in one year, however, for this academic year, we will be focusing on the following categories:
• Educational
• Student Services
• Social
Objectives of the campaign:
Careers
| 1. |
Careers Fair focused on BAME students |
| 2. |
Events with Black leaders in relevant industries |
| 3. |
Partnership (micro placements, internships, and graduate schemes) with Black Businesses |
| 4. |
Signpost students to internship and job opportunities specifically marketed towards BAME students, low-income, etc.
|
Accessibility to Counselling and Mental Health Services
| 1. |
Our student EDI reps have started the hard work of researching culturally competent mental health services and interviewing students. We want this campaign to be shaped by you, and therefore, your contributions are vital to this.
|
| 3. |
Report has been shared at Senate and other University Committees. |
| 4. |
Working together with University to address them and make our services more accessible for our students by:
- Joining the Mental Health Charter group.
- Implementing a new mental health strategy university-wide.
- Creating an Awareness for Mental Health campaign focused on destigmatising seeking for support amongst underrepresented groups.
|
Library
| 1. |
Increase the range of books in the library written by people from a BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) background and religious minorities, books by and about LGBTQI+ people and titles which recognise overlapping identities and experiences such as gender, class, sexuality and disability.
|
| 2. |
Liberating CityLibrary will work in a similar way to the already established book suggestion schemes ‘More Books‘ and ‘Read for Research’. To get involved all you need to do is complete our online form and if the requested book costs less than £60 and there are no copies in stock, your order will be placed within five working days.
Se more information here.
|
Policies and Security
| 1. |
Policies to be student friendly, coherent and unambiguous for both online and in-person forms of discrimination and racism, with accountability from the University to take swift, appropriate actions to support victims and identify perpetrators.
|
| 2. |
Ensuring students know how to report incidents to staff members (Security and S&AS) and feel safe whilst doing so, regardless of their gender & ethnicity. Staff to undertake training to ensure they are empathetic with students.
|