This Week in USI Feb 25th – March 3rd, 2017

USI warmly welcomes the ethnic minority recognition, finally, of the Irish Travelling community in the Dáil on the night of Wednesday 1st of March. USI will continue to work with Pavee Point on lobbying efforts to secure more investment for education for the community in Ireland.

General:

• USI Officer Board elections have begun with local Students’ Unions hustings happening all over Ireland. For information on the final list of candidates, click here. 

• Nominations for the Student Achievement Awards Ireland 2017 are now open. Click here for more information and to enter.

• USI Vice President for Campaigns presented the award for Best Interpretation at the Youth For Decent Work Awards run by ICTU.

• USI held a Student Summit pitch competition with Bank of Ireland in Dublin with student start-up Better Examinations going to the final round to win €3,000 on March 21st.

Policy and Campaigns:

• The USI are the only group representing students and young people to have been asked to present to the Citizens’ Assembly on March 5th. This week, our Vice President for Equality and Citizenship and the USI President submitted their presentation. Check out the full line up here.

• NUS-USI ran an aggressive campaign called #IfStudentsRanStormont to get young people and students out to vote for the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections #AE17 which took place on March 2nd.

• USI attended the briefing for a new HSE backed campaign around alcohol harm reduction which will be launched next week. USI are one of many leading partners ensuring the students’ voice and concerns are part of the campaign.

• USI lobbied TDs, Ministers and Senators about publicly-funded higher education.

• USI Vice President for Campaigns met with Twitter to discuss future collaborations on events and campaigns.

• USI met with United The Union to gain their support for publicly-funded higher education.

• The President and the Vice President for Academic Affairs met with the Higher Education Authority (HEA) on Thursday to review the funding allocation model for higher education institutions. They stressed the importance of a funding model that better supported institutional sustainability.

• The Vice President for Equality and Citizenship attended the 2nd meeting of the National LGBT Youth Strategy chaired by Una Mullally and addressed by Minister Katherine Zappone, which due to the USI contribution and support from other organisations, will now be re-named the National LGBTI+ Youth Strategy to ensure inclusion of young intersex people in Ireland as well as those who identify on a gender and sexuality spectrum beyond LGBT.

• The Vice President for Equality and Citizenship met with Joanne O’Riordan, the disability rights activist to discuss the campaign to ensure the ratification of UN CRPD.

• The Vice President for Equality and Citizenship spoke at a ‘Women Lead Project’ event in DCU Students’ Union, encouraging more candidates to get involved and how to run for election.

• The Vice President for the Southern Region created a policy on personal safety and water safety.

• On Tuesday 1st, The USI and Amnesty International facilitated the first of a series of regional ‘Students for Choice’ workshops on lobbying for a repeal of the 8th amendment. The first one was in TCDSU. The next will be in NUIGSU on March 14th, and to register, email youth@amnesty.ie.

• The Vice President for Academic Affairs finalised preparations for the 33rd European Students’ Convention, which is to be held in NUI Galway next week. The ESC is a bi-annual event convening student leaders from across the continent and will address access to higher education and Brexit.

• Conradh na Gaeilge‘s Ard-Fheis took place in Galway last weekend. Over 30 students attended the event in Galway. USI had a DCU student Caoimhe Ní Chonghaile elected onto the executive board of the Conradh and over ten motions put forward to the Ard-Fheis by students.

• USI Vice President for Campaigns attended the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI)’s youth campaign meeting on more investment into youth work and attended the board meeting to discuss the alcohol bill, Brexit and child protection guidelines.

• Tionól Tríú AMLÉ also took place on the Saturday, where we had Padráig Ó Tiarnaigh from An Dream Dearg speaking about the campaign for a Language Act in Northern Ireland.

• USI were at Lá na Gaeilge in WIT on Wednesday to celebrate the launch of Seachtain na Gaeilge.

Tionól Tríú AMLÉ also took place on the Saturday

USI Elections Spotlight (Local Hustings):