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NUS is committed to helping unions become as inclusive as possible. The Strong and Active Unions campaign has teamed up with the Equality Challenge Unit to survey thousands of students to source the best practice across the country. Please encourage all your students and officers to fill out the survey.

Dear student leader,

An opportunity to make a difference

Equality Challenge Unit (ECU), NUS and AMSU (the Association of Managers in Students’ Unions) are seeking your contribution to an Inclusive Students’ Unions project. The scope of the project relates to the six equality strands of age, disability, gender, race, religion/ belief and sexual orientation.

To contribute to the research stage of this project, we would like you to complete a short web-based survey, designed specifically for students, by following the link http://www.surveyassist.com/s/hEUwNOJKRNzoZ8b. Please help us by forwarding this email to any students you know so that they can complete the survey too. The deadline for responding to the survey is Friday 13July 2007.

Survey responses will inform joint ECU/ AMSU/ NUS guidance for union staff and student officers/ society leaders, showcasing the ways in which individual unions have tackled issues and implemented solutions to actively include particular groups. A parallel survey for union staff is currently being distributed via AMSU. Please note that we are only able to analyse survey responses from students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as ECU’s remit for project work does not extend to Scotland.

What’s in it for you and your union?

You will be making a valuable contribution to an initiative to
make unions more inclusive – better places both to be a student and to
work.

Telling us about existing examples of inclusive practice – and
areas where barriers exist – will help ensure that the final guidance is
genuinely useful to you and staff in your union.

There’s a strong chance that inclusive practice examples from
your union will be used in project outputs such as guidance,
presentations and ECU’s 2008 equality toolkit.

ECU is funded by the higher education sector to promote equality and diversity within the sector for staff and students. To read more about ECU and its current programme of work, please visit the website:

http://www.ecu.ac.uk/

(For more information about equality work in higher education in Scotland, visit http://www.equalityforwardscotland.ac.uk/)

Many thanks in advance from ECU.

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