The NUS Black Students’ Campaign is the largest collective of African, Asian and Caribbean students across Europe. It is headed up by an elected full-time officer and committee of volunteers who work to support and represent the breadth of needs and aspirations of the Black community in Further and Higher Education. The focus of this work is in four key areas of policy passed at the annual summer conference. This year Black students prioritised: Black representation, equality in education, respect not racism and internationalism.

The first term of the 2004-05 has been one of the busiest the NUS Black Students’ Campaign has ever seen. We organised two very successful national conferences – Black Students’ in Wolverhampton and Anti-Racism in Manchester – as well as a series of regional Black students’ events. We also attended the less inspiring NUS Reform Conference where the majority-white leadership of NUS cut representation of Black places by more than 75 per cent, despite our vocal objections.

The Campaign has delivered on a key component of its education strategy with a 104-page handbook sponsored by Accenture. This has received praise from the Prime Minister and Wole Soyinka, the first-ever Black African Nobel Prize winner. We also sent out a freshers pack to every institution in the country full of information on NUS Black Students’, job fairs; ideas for campaigns and other resources, so that student unions could know more about us and Black students in their institutions. This was followed up by the launch – in partnership with the National Black Students’ Alliance and Operation Black Vote – of a Black Students’ Officer in Every Union campaign which included posters, flyers and an education pack outlining the need for proper representation.

Strengthening the diverse groups within the Black student movement has been a key element of our work. We ran events for Black-LGB and Further Education students in London, for Black women in Bradford, for asylum and refugee students in Nottingham, held a challenging Islamophobia, conference in Manchester, and ran a building clubs and societies’ training day and a job skills day in the capital with private sector partners. We hope to build on these events next year.

Building on our internationalist component, we were integrally engaged in the European Social Forum at the heart of our Black History Month celebrations, also co-organising a Rebuilding Africa Conference with pan-African organisations leading the way. We also ran a series of events looking at the Palestinian question., and raising the need to protect Palestinian human rights and for a just and peaceful solution to the Israel/Palestine crisis based on international law – opposing occupation and the separation wall.

This year’s Campaign has also had strong engagement with Ministers and policy makers. Meetings with Stephen Twigg MP on the Bloack Curriculum, Diane Abbott MP and David Lammy MP on Black students’ progress through education; with the Mayor of London on racism and fighting the BNP. In addition, we have engaged in a series of public consultations on FE students in education, the impact of a single human rights commission as opposed to a separate CRE (which we opposed), an identity card (which we opposed), reform of Stop and Search policing (which we support).

Over this term the Campaign also launched national initiatives to defend international student Victor Ruttoh at Bradford University who was beaten up in custody before being deported, and we demanded justice for Kalan Karim, the young asylum seeker murdered in a racist attack in Swansea. NUS Black Students also partnered the Student Assembly Against Racism and Mayor of London to organise a London-wide Respect Not Racism Week. We also supported a number of initiatives to counter the rise of Islamophobia, including our support for the pro-hijab conference, and the launch of Islamic Awareness Week.

The Black Students’ Officer has also been assisting individual students and colleges, and made visits to more than 40 colleges and universities. He has met Black students and their union officers to address the needs of as many of our members as can possible by one officer, working without any administrative or policy and research staff support.

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