On 17th August I went to speak to the Aegis Trust Student Summer Conference - a full report can be read here

The International Day for Darfur is approaching on 17th September find out more info on www.dayfordarfur.org

I was asked to speak about the importance of the NUS Internationalism work we carry out:

Good Afternoon, firstly thank you for inviting me here to speak to you today. It is a privilege to be stood here representing the largest democratic student organisation in the world, a movement that encompasses over 5 million members in further and higher education – a movement full of campaigners, activists and internationalists.

NUS was founded in 1922 in the wake of WWI, as a movement for international peace, the students of 1922 knew we had a part to play in internationalist campaigns and solidarity and we’ve continued that up to this day. Our work on internationalism is framed around our values of democracy, collectivism and equality, and particularly around a phrase developed after the 7/7 bombings, “against racism, against terrorism, against war”. Recent events in the middle east, have impassioned students across the UK, devastated by the loss of life and destruction on all sides of the conflict and desperate a for peaceful solution – NUS welcomes tentatively the ceasefire and calls for an immediate cessation to all hostilities, bombings, fighting and loss of life in the region, which hopefully will lead to a permanent ceasefire. I hope that student groups on campus will pledge their support to international aid organisations to help the escalating humanitarian disaster in the region.

We have a proud history of standing up for human rights abuses across the world: NUS was instrumental in the collapse of the apartheid regime in South Africa - in 1987, student pressure forced Barclays Bank to stop investing in South Africa. NUS was the leading light in cross borders co-operation in the republic of Ireland and the north of Ireland in the form of NUS-USI and NUS has stood shoulder to shoulder with the oppressed and abused worldwide – we consistently campaign for peace and social justice at home and abroad.

I hear with boring repetition that we should only discuss issues that effect “students as students”, for me that is more of a falsehood now than it ever has been. Students are not just students, they are workers, women, LGBT students, carers, parents, studying here from overseas, they are of different faiths, different races and cultures. We don’t, somehow the minute we step onto campus, get sucked into some student life vacuum; we are citizens of the local community, of the UK and of the world and we have a right, and a duty to care about the human rights abuses, war and poverty that infests our planet. The world is thinking globally, universities are thinking globally - building campuses abroad and recruiting students from all over the world, so why should Students’ Unions not think globally but do it by taking on some responsibility for the people of the world who are suffering.

Some people will say, “why don’t we leave the rest of the world to debate and sort out their own problems?” the answer is clear, because we are members of an international community, their problems become ours, as ours become theirs.

Today NUS is focusing back on campaigning, not only on our traditional issues, education funding in FE and HE, university accommodation and quality of our education – but on international solidarity campaigns in Columbia, Venezuela, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Iraq and now Darfur.

If I knew that just for standing for election for National President I would run the risk of getting shot in the head by paramilitaries – I wonder if I would be brave enough to even stand, but people do. Students in Columbia are brave enough and they need our solidarity and support just to do what we take for granted every day. We will be taking a speaker tour with the new President of the Columbian Students Union, round universities and colleges in October educating student activists about the situation in Columbia and calling them to action.

In Venezuela, the Bolivarian Revolution has led to a huge and far reaching change for the Venezuelan people, education is now open to all, not just the preserve of the rich, illiteracy has been virtually eradicated and land has been given to landless families and organised into co-operatives to help lift people out of poverty. NUS has passed clear and strong policy to run solidarity campaigns with Venezuala and will be encouraging Student Unions to support the amazing reforms taking place in the Latin American Country and to demand that there is no foreign interference or attacks on Venezuela or it’s President, Chavez.

Our women’s campaign this year is working with the Dignity Period campaign, a campaign run by Action for Southern Africa about women’s sanitary products in Zimbabwe. The price of a box of tampons has inflated to such a level, they cost half of one man’s monthly wage. They have become an unaffordable necessity. As such, women in Zimbabwe are using whatever materials they can to look after their sanitary health during menstruation and getting infections, their husbands then assume they have been unfaithful and incidence of domestic violence have shot up. Women’s groups up and down the country will be running “stop violence against women” campaigns and fundraising to send thousands of boxes of sanitary products to Zimbabwe. Another example of the small things we take for granted causing such lack of dignity, pain and humiliation and another example of how students can mobilise to make such a difference to people of the global community.

Just recently four members of the national executive committee of NUS took part in a youth delegation to South Africa. They came back enthused, passionate and knowing that there is more the student movement can do in post apartheid South Africa, to assist with the strengthening of their newly formed National Union of Students, to help with the HIV/AIDS pandemic and to, through our student union shops, help fund more play pumps in South Africa –Trevor Field has invented a pump called ‘Play pump’ which generates clean water for local villages. The children play on a round about and generate water through a pump underground. There is a brand of water that is sold in the UK where the profits go to funding play pumps in South Africa. The water is called ‘One’ and every 22,000 bottles sold, funds one play pump. This year we are going to push for this water to be stocked in our shops on our campuses, students, just through buying a bottle of water, an every day occurrence, making a real difference to others lives.

In the wake of the war in Iraq students have begun to work collectively and represent themselves. Iraqi students have come over to NUS Scotland to investigate how a national union is run and to share best practice on student union development. The NUS development materials that we shared with the Iraqi students have now been translated into Arabic and distributed across students unions in Iraq.

And so we are proud to be working proactively with the Aegis Trust, proud to be adding our strength to the calls for an end to the genocide of the people of Darfur, proud to be educating our members on the situation in the Sudan despite deafening silence from the media and the international community. Students are vital in this campaigning work and as such, NUS will be helping to mobilise students to engage in the work of the aegis trust.

In January I attended the national holocaust memorial day event in Cardiff, when we got into the Taxi at the end of the night to go to the Station, the taxi driver told us a story that horrified me. He said that two 20-22 year old women got in his taxi earlier on in the evening and enquired as to what event was happening at the Millennium Centre and why the roads were closed, he replied that it was a HMD event. They then said, “What is the holocaust?”

That is why these events and organisations like the Aegis Trust are so necessary, to be reminded and re-educated about the horrific events, to be reminded of the displaced children the entire communities that were destroyed and the bravery of thousands of people who did not turn a blind eye to the atrocities. It is vital to ensure we do not forget, that we do not let it happen again.

The event also focused on Rwanda and Darfur, and the lack of help that the rest of the world offered in Rwanda until it was really too late. The situation in Darfur is still continuing yet the eyes of the world are still turned away. It is very easy to say “never again” or “we mustn’t forget” but over the past two years hundreds of thousands of men, women and children have died and another 2.5 million people have been forced to leave their homes and communities in Darfur.

We must engage, we must campaign, we must protect the people of Darfur - let us mean it when we say “never again”

Thank you for listening

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