Annual Report 2019 Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association
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ANNUAL REPORT 2019 VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATION TE RŌPU TAUIRA O TE KURA WĀNANGA O TE UPOKO O TE IKA A MAUI INC 1 Contents 1 President’s Report 2 a. VUWSA Executive Members List, 2019 3 b. Events 4 c. Campaigns 10 d. Advocacy / Representation 16 e. Strategic Recommendations 20 2 Appendices: a. Sex WeeK Report 23 b. Mental Health Report 39 c. ChecK the Rec Report 54 d. Student AssembLy Constitution (Draft) 68 e. Student AssembLy Discussion Document 73 PRESIDENT’S REPORT Tēnā tātou e ngā tauira katoa o Te Whare Wānanga o te Ūpoko o te Ika. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou e ngā tauira, e ngā kaimahi o tō tātou whare wānanga, mō tō koutou awhi i tēnei tau. To the students and workers of Victoria University of Wellington, thank you for allowing us to serve you, to advocate for you, to heed and articulate your voice to the leaders of the University, in Wellington, in Aotearoa, and in the world. As a group of students who are passionate about giving back to our student community, we have strived our hardest to fight for a student experience and learning environment which not only helps you to succeed in your studies, but one that allows you to thrive, maintain a healthy wellbeing, keeps you safe and brings more opportunities. It was an honour to become the first wahine Māori President in the 122-year history of VUWSA, and although the enormity of the role presented challenges sometimes which were compounded by some of the attitudes and behaviour I experienced as the first 2 women President in five years (yikes!), I was really well supported by yourselves and our incredible staff. After 3 and a bit years at VUWSA, I am glad to have been able to contribute to such an important kaupapa. Special thanks to our CEO, Matt Tucker, for all of his support in making all of our dreams a reality. Mā whero, mā pango, ka oti ai te mahi. Tamatha Paul Ngāti Awa, Waikato Tainui VUWSA EXECUTIVE MEMBERS, 2019 PRESIDENT Tamatha Paul ACADEMIC VICE PRESIDENT Geo Robrigado ENGAGEMENT VICE PRESIDENT Puawai Waller WELFARE VICE PRESIDENT Rhianna Morar Michael Turnbull TREASURER SECRETARY Delia Fu EDUCATION OFFICER Rinaldo Strydom CAMPAIGNS OFFICER Finn Carroll CLUBS & ACTIVITIES OFFICER Millie Osborne WELLBEING & SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER Kimberley McIntyre Michael Turnbull EQUITY OFFICER Komal Singh 3 EVENTS Orientation Week & Re-Set Week O Week is always a good time and it’s awesome being able to give freshers a good induction into the Capital City. We always have a good line up of day and night time events. Our night events included concerts with Rudimental, Mako Road, Sweet Mix Kids, Netsky, Max Key, Winston Surfshirt, Benee and my personal favourite, Melodownz. This year we saw the a declining trend of intoxication and incidences at our events which is supported by our effective Safe Room which provides students a safe place to take a break from the events of the evening. Our volunteers are always excellent, patrolling the events and making sure people are drinking plenty of water. This year, we wanted to ensure we had plenty of non-alcoholic events on offer for students so we provided an outdoor Movie Night, Song Bingo, Campus Expo’s, Quiz Night, and heaps of on campus activities. We rebranded Re-Orientation Week to Re-Set week so that it is more oriented towards students preparing for the second trimester of the year with more inspiring and motivating events. Many first year students struggle in the second semester, so we wanted to make sure we were cognisant of this, and supporting their success. 4 We learnt that we need a much bigger venue for O Week and were happy to secure The Hub as a venue for 2020. Recommendation: (1) continue with wraparound care and support for students at all of our events to ensure that we aren’t contributing to binge drinking cultures, and are able to reduce harm where possible. (2) Work with University on Hall kickout times to deter binge drinking and give students a safe place to consume alcohol. Mental Health Wānanga One of our first exec-led events for the year was the Mental Health Wānanga at Tapu te Ranga Marae in Island Bay, Wellington. We brought together students from all of the academic and equity representative groups, different faculties and different age groups to get a comprehensive understanding of what solutions students would like to see to improve their mental wellbeing. In 2018, we gained a lot of momentum following “The Wait is Over” Mental Health Rally and Campaign which we organised. This wānanga was intended to build off the strength of this, and to produce a report which we could give to University leadership and student leaders which would outline the key changes and opportunities that the University could invest in to support the mental wellbeing of their students such as making all lectures available online which would allow students to work, make space for family and cultural obligations, and take a day off when they need. 5 Recommendation: (1) Support equity representative groups and faculty representative groups to find solutions that support students mental health. This is undeniably the biggest non-academic issue facing students and deserves VUWSA and the University’s full attention. (2) Vic Student Health & Counselling services will probably lose three or four counsellors when the Piki Pilot ends in 2021 which will add strain to the wait times students experience when awaiting to see a counsellor. VUWSA should keep up good relationships with Director of Student Services, people from Tū Ora Compass Health who provide us the extra counsellors, and the Ministers and Spokespeople for Health within Parliament to ensure VUWSA is aware of opportunities to improve the capacity of this service for students. Sex Week is a fresh way to bring the sex birds and the bees to young people. It’s a cheeky, unapologetic educational experience on the sex week talk you wish you had. april 1-5, 2019 follow us for more info: @vuwsagram /vuwsa @vuwsa Sex Week 6 One in three students will experience sexual harm during their time in tertiary education, in New Zealand. In 2018, the University and VUWSA partnered to create Sex in The Hub which was a one off event at Kelburn which had panels, a quiZ and different stalls which explored consent, sexuality education and sexual health. In 2019, we decided to scale this up to a full blow weeklong event. Rhianna and I decided we wanted to have expo’s at every campus catered towards the predominant disciplines at each campus (e.g. Te Aro campus had more of an art and design focus), we wanted to have a number of different events, and we wanted to empower our equity representative groups to be involved in the co-design of this week. We managed to get the event totally funded by the University (through Pam Thorburn and Emma Mossman) and Wellington City Council (through the Mayor’s discretionary fund). Our expo’s allowed us to partner with different organisation such as the HIV Aids Foundation and Wellington Rape Crisis, and had a focus on normalizing korero about sexuality, consent and sexual health. We organised an interhall competition as part of the annual interhall competition in order to engage first year students where we asked halls to create a 40-sec video of what consent meant to them. Weir House won and created an incredible video which Wellington Sexual Abuse HELP Network now use as a resource when they go into High Schools. We were really happy with how the week went, a key change we made was to have the event in April rather than September so that it is part of first year students introduction to tertiary life. 7 Recommendation: (1) Ensure that Sex Week is always early in the year to hit the time when first year students are learning – continue to advocate for consistent, compulsory consent and sexuality education in secondary schools in New Zealand as per the major recommendation within the In Our Own Words, Thursdays in Black Report 2017. (2) Secure a multi-year funding agreement with the University for the future financial viability and consistency of the event. (3) Have more involvement of equity representative groups, faculty representative groups and University sports clubs in the design and implementation of this week. (4) Find new, consistent and successful ways to engage with Halls of Residence around the subject of consent. The University has committed to this in the past, but we found that their approach is often inconsistent. Making it a part of the interhall competition in some way will be helpful. Toitū te Ao This year, we combined Wiki o Te Reo Māori and Sustainability Week to create Toitū te Ao, the name was gifted by Prof. Rawinia Higgins. The University’s Sustainability Office fully funded us to run this week on their behalf, so we were able to combine a number of staff and student events. The stand out event of the week was our Sustainability / Kaupapa Māori expo in the Hub on the Wednesday where we had involvement from over forty organisations, departments, businesses and stakeholders from throughout the City. Recommendation: (1) Get a multi-year funding agreement with the University to run this event. (2) Combine Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori (or other indigenous language weeks) with Sustainability Week to show the crossover and nuance between indigenous 8 solutions and environmental sustainability. This will also ensure we reach beyond the environmentally-minded students who naturally engage with this type of kaupapa.