Welfare and Community – Georgia Miles

VOTE GEORGIA #1 for REAL WELFARE SUPPORT: free health screenings, same-day crisis care, affordable housing and essentials, clear financial support, and a safe campus! Build a community that includes and protects students of every background and identity. A vote for me demands better from our university, for support you deserve!

So tell us about yourself and what your campaign for Welfare and Communities Officer is about.

I’m Georgie. I’m running to be the welfare and community officer this year. And my campaign is about creating real and systemic change rather than just attacking a couple of issues at a time. So my priority is, first of all, improving the mental and physical health supports available through Queen’s, but then also helping with cost of living pressures. Protecting our student renters and also creating a campus that is safe and inclusive for everyone of all backgrounds and identities.

What has your experience been representing and working with students? And to what and where do you have a passion for helping out Queen’s students as well?

This year I’ve been the Faculty Representative for Medicine, Health and Life Science, Postgraduate Taught students, and during this time I have helped Medicine placement students to flag the lack of mental health supports that they’re receiving. I’ve helped EDI rep staff to improve the inclusion of disabled and neurodivergent students during lectures, and I’ve even helped some students to report staff misconduct in a way that protects our students. Doing this work has just made me realized that I really do have a passion for raising the student voice. Protecting student welfare. And so now I want to bring that to the entire campus.

What big challenges do you think that QUB students see in terms of student welfare?

I’d say a big one is health, because I think for a lot of students, they know that something maybe isn’t going right with their mental health or their physical health, but because they’ve got so many other stressors rent, finances, studying, they tend to ignore that. So what I really want to create is a system where they don’t need to ignore that we have preventative measures, and we can better catch students that are reaching crisis point. And then I think in terms of, you know, financial stress, we do have services in place in the uni and the union, but they are not inclusive of all the student groups. So I think that’s a struggle as well. Another thing to address is making sure that things like the pantry is actually accessible to Postgrads and placement students who sometimes may be in even worse financial positions but can’t actually access the supports we have in place. So I think a big thing for me is ensuring that everything we have at the moment expands to include everything and everyone, but then just taking that bigger step to have a like a holistic, systemic change for welfare.

I know you mentioned the cost of living and renter’s rights, for example, in your in your campaign, could you elaborate just a bit more as to how to, to help change that, to improve student welfare in terms of the cost of living?

For the cost of living, what I personally want to act on is, first of all, Queen’s does have two Hardship Funds available, but a lot of students don’t know about them and they don’t know where to apply, how to apply if they’re eligible. So I want to change that. I want to better promote these funds, but I also want to lobby for queens to actually increase the funding that they have available so more students are able to access, um, that kind of short term financial support.

And then within the union, again, things like the Pantry, they’re not accessible for everyone. A lot of students, they can’t miss lectures to come during the day to the pantry. We need to expand that to the hours that actually suit students so that, you know, we’ve got things in place. We need to change them. So they actually do help support us financially. And then also for cost of living, I’d like to lobby for grants for things like printing and transport, which are a big part of actually engaging with uni and getting onto campus and getting your studies done. That’s something that students – you know – it really takes away from the the funds that they have left for the more important things when they’re thinking about printing, transport, food as well. Another big thing actually is having actually affordable hot food on campus, because the food options we have now are not subsidised in any meaningful way. So I really want to bring some cheaper options there.

What would you say are your three biggest criteria for success in your campaign?

So to know that I’d been successful as the Welfare, I would like to see that some of my manifesto points are actually visible. So things like the free health screenings on campus that would, you know, actual physical sessions that we could run for that.

Two other points. I’d like to see that the diversity in the student groups that we actually see on campus improves because they know that there’s actually services available for them, so they’re actually coming onto campus. So we’ve got more Postgrads that are getting involved with the SU.

I think another measure of change that I would really like to see from my manifesto is that during the day we have a very lively union and campus, but I would want to see that students are feeling safer to go through study spaces, use the facilities at the night time as well. So one of my action points is pushing Queen’s to have night-time campus security. That’s actually visible because there is security at the moment, but I don’t think anyone actually knows how to call them if they’re needed. Um, so just having things like that in place, so that students don’t feel like they have to run away when they get stuck, they can stay on campus and it’s a safe and inclusive space for them.

And then in five words or less, sorry, what is your campaign about?

Systemic change and human support.

In the student area, do you have any favorite cafes at all?

It’s a love-hate relationship. I love The Clements in the MBC, but again, it’s so expensive. It’s so hard for, like, keeping on a budget in, like, when you want to buy on the union site. But I would say keep a look out for when the union’s doing free breakfasts and free lunches because they are more common recently.

You can read Georgia’ manifesto here.