SUSU not posting about Diwali

Anonymous submitted on

Wednesday 7th November 2018

Complete

Why hasnt SUSU posted anything about Diwali (Hindu Festival), a lot of internatinal students celebrate it? Last year Arun put a video on SUSU channels about it. It seems like SUSU is not really interested in acknowldging other cultures and important festivals any more. Very disappointed. 

Answers

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Emily Harrison submitted on

Friday 16th November 2018

Complete

Hi there,

Thank you for your You Make Change submission.

Firstly, I apoligise that there was not any communications about Diwali on the actual day. I was on annual leave for that week and was not here. As you might have seen, there was some social media posts from the main SUSU page the day after highlighting the events put on by various societies, such as Hindu Society, to celebrate the festival. I also posted with delayed well wishes and apologies when I was briefly in the office on Friday.

However, I absolutely appreciate that there should have been a post that went out on the actual day. I have raised this within the Union and am working to ensure that the delivery of things such as this is not reliant on one person and so things should be picked up in an absense of a Sabbatical Officer.

The videos are a lovely idea, however due to recent events we have not had the time to organise these. Following your YMC submission, I have booked in some time with our videographer to film a series of videos for occassions such as this.

We are very committed to acknowledging other cultures and important festivals. For example, in October we had Black History Month where we worked enstively with various relevant societies, such as East African Society, Ghanaian Society and ACS to put on a series of diverse events and campaigns celebrating various cultures. This was our biggest Black History Month to date and saw the most engagement from students yet which was fantastic! We have also financially supported the East vs West Fashion Show which is being put on by East African Society which is a celebration of East and West African fashion and culture. We plan to continue to support students and societies in celebrating various cultures throughotu the year. For example, we will be decorating the concourse for Lunar New Year again and are also currently in the planning stages of Cukture Festival which we will be holding again in March.

If you have any ideas for what you would like to see us doing for future festivals or celebrations of any kind, please let us know beforehand and we are more than happy to work with you on whatever you want to achieve! You can contact me by emailing me at vpcommunities@susu.org.

Kind regards,

Emily Harrison

VP Student Communities 2018-19.