President
Jacky He
SRC Pizza and Beer Party Overview
The SRC hosted a very successful pizza and beer party open to all undergraduate students on Thursday 28th of March. The event attracted the attendance of around 100 students across all faculties and disciplines, including both international and domestic. It was a fantastic opportunity for undergraduate students, especially for first year students, to expand their network at the University. It was also very lovely to see our student office bearers actively engaging with other undergraduate students, getting to know their needs and feedbacks about the SRC. The SRC, in collaboration with Courtyard, was able to provide each one of our 100 students with a free beer. We also had a face-painting workshop set up for the students! Hereby I would like to thank the entire senior executive team, especially Caitlyn who has been responsible for organising the marketing and organising helpers for the event. I would also like to thank our international student officers Visspa, Ken, Janet and Jahanzaib for their works in preparing and setting up the event. I would also like to thank our caseworker Mel for providing safety advices that have allowed the event to proceed without any issues.
Enhancing Student’s University Experience
The university’s campus experience steering group is recently looking for students to participate in their study about student experience on campus. If you are an undergraduate student who is interested in being a part of the process, please visit our SRC Facebook page and scroll to the relevant section to register your details. Or you may also visit http://tiny.cc/campusx to register your interest.
Disabilities Officer
Hayden Moon and Wilson Huang
Hello and a warm welcome from the Disabilities officers.
Support the mental health of students
During Welcome Week, we communicated with the NUS Disabilities Officer William Edwards about his No Mind Left Behind campaign. A disproportionate number of students experience psychological distress, and we are dismayed by campus counselling services. The University of Sydney gives students up to 6 counselling sessions per year. For many students needing long term support, this is not enough. We encourage everyone to sign a petition calling for reform in campus counselling services at www.megaphone.org.au/p/nmlb.
Accessibility at Redfern station
In October 2018, the USyd Disabilities Collective along with People with Disabilities Australia (PWDA) held a rally outside Redfern calling for more accessible public transport. We are pleased to announce that according to news from The Sydney Morning Herald, new lifts will be built increasing accessibility to Redfern Station. We continue to advocate for accessibility in public transport for all disabled people.
Disabilities space on campus
We would like a space on campus for students and staff with disability. Students with disability can be incredibly isolated especially when they don’t know others like them. We believe that having a disabilities space would be beneficial for the social inclusion, mental health and wellbeing of disabled students on campus. We have contacted the USU about finding a space and plan to follow up on it.
Intersectionality
During the beginning of the year, two of our collective members, Robin Eames (Disabilities officer 2018) and Hayden Moon (Disabilities officer 2019), presented at The Better Together Conference held by The Equality Project.
As members of SQuAD (Sydney Queer and Disability community group), Hayden and Robin did a great job of discussing the difficulties that come with being disabled and queer in 2019 and how far we still need to go in terms of equality. The Panel was called “Queer & Disabled: Intersections, inclusion, solidarity, community.”
Joining the Disabilities collective
As always we welcome new members into our collective who have disabilities including mental, chronic, or terminal illnesses; people who are neurodivergent; and people who are D/deaf or hard of hearing, even if they don’t identify as disabled or as having a disability. Sign up at https://www.facebook.com/groups/USydDisabilities2018/.
Wom*ns Officers
Gabi Stricker-Phelps and Crystal Xu
FREE Sanitary Items
We have purchased our first batch of sanitary items! We intend to refill stock each month. If you need sanitary items, please do not hesitate to come and get what you need from the SRC office under the Wentworth Building free of charge.
Women’s Health Week and Mental Health
We are proposing a Women’s Health Week from the 6-9th of September 2019. This would involve health focused talks, information sessions and workshops. The focus topics include:
- Contraception and Sex
- Self-defence classes
- Zumba or aerobics
- Meditation and mindfulness
- Understanding abortion and accessing pregnancy services
- Nutrition
- Reliable and affordable health care services for students
If you have an idea or topic you would like to raise during this week (or before) please visit or contact us.
We are liaising with the Health Education Officer, Miriam Deshayes. Miriam also wants the University Health Service to collaborate with SUPRA and the SRC for University Mental Health Day on the 7th of May.
Meetings
We had a follow up meeting with Sophia Zeritis and the senior manager of diversity, leadership and inclusion department, Sarah Abbott, to discuss potential collaboration between the SRC and the university on promoting career development and female leadership panels. We submitted a student survey result about university career services and pointed out several problem areas that the career centre could focus on to improve student experience and the provision of services. We also intend to run a panel discussion forum in Semester 2 with female alumni to foster mentoring relationships.
Female Journalism: ENID
We are working on promoting and setting up the ENID platform, an online hub of USYD women’s opinions, work, thoughts and issues. If you have an interest in writing, illustrating, photography, playing a musical instrument, performing, giving advice or have anything else you want to share contact us as per details below. All students are welcome and encouraged to get involved.