decolonisation
The Union's Sabbatical Officers, working alongside and with the support of the National Union of Students (NUS), are working to develop and deliver decolonising workshops to local Stirling high schools. This will be in partnership with Forth Valley College, the Students' Union, staff and students. That's where you come in.
This campaign is an opportunity to work together to create anti-colonial content. While the funding to support the initiative was applied to by the Sabbatical Officers, their main duty moving forward is to support the campaign, not control it. We want to hear from and support those most affected by colonialism in Stirling, and beyond, centring their voices and experiences to educate young people in our community. While racial issues are the most prominent forms of colonial oppression, this campaign also recognises the impacts on other marginalised groups. Furthermore, the additional impacts of those who fall into more than one of these groups. We seek liberation for all, and will therefore also consider the impacts on people of colour, women, non-binary people, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people and lower-income people: all people who are impacted by colonial oppression.
The workshops will endeavour to educate our community on the influence of white supremacy. It seeks to combat and remove these existing narratives from our community. By teaching the reality of colonialism to our communities, students will be aware of how it is still present today. The four main areas of consideration throughout are community culture; leading change; youth engagement; and education.
Those who wish to be involved with the campaign are expected to:
- Tasks will be delegated at the fortnightly meetings, with time spans for completion ranging depending on the urgency of the task;
- All team members are responsible for reporting back to the rest of the team with updates and making the team aware if they require more time or assistance;
- At no point should any person feel obliged to complete a task in isolation, and will always be able to request support;
- Each team member, when relevant, will take on at least one action per meeting.
Meetings:
- Meetings to occur fortnightly, with additional meetings as required;
- For the foreseeable our meetings will take place via MS Teams, a Team and relevant channels will be established to aid organisation;
- Where possible, these will be held in person, with the option of joining virtually always available;
- If a member of the team cannot make a meeting it is expected they will give their apologies in as much advance as possible, and catch up with minutes thereafter.
Campaign members can be involved in a variety of ways including with the development of the workshops, delivery of the workshops, communications, administration and so on. We are still developing concrete roles/engagement opportunities that we will be sharing but for now, keen to see who is interested in helping take this important work forward.
To sign-up and find out more, complete this short form.