Vote YES to give UUSU the best
Voting YES to NUS-USI means we can continue nearly 50 years of championing students and driving change to make your lives better.
On 13th November, voting will open to allow Ulster students to have your say on whether UUSU will remain part of NUS-USI in future years. We want to strengthen YOUR voice and campaign locally and nationally for YOUR priorities as UUSU students.
If you leave NUS-USI, you will leave NUS and USI too, so it’s crucial you vote YES to remaining in NUS-USI.
Where our political institutions have failed us, NUS-USI consistently strives to drive change and make students’ lives better.
We believe YOU deserve the same benefits as our other members and you can do this simply by saying YES to remain part of NUS-USI today.
The collective voice that NUS-USI provides strengthens the student movement’s ability to deliver on students’ priorities around tuition fees, grants and loans.
How we’ve worked for you:
- NUS-USI delivered and maintained the cap on tuition fees, preventing high fees being introduced here in the NI budget processes. Fees this year are £4,160 for NI domiciled students studying here
- NUS-USI delivered the first ever government postgraduate student loan system here, announced in 2016. The loan is to the value of £5,500, and is non-means tested
- We delivered an improved funding system for part-time undergraduate students here which is a top up loan and non-means tested
- Staff support for UUSU, we’ve delivered trustee training and strategic plan development support
- NUS-USI won significant concessions during the reform of nursing and midwifery student bursaries, confirmed in 2012, like retaining book and uniform allowance for the next intake of nursing and midwifery students
- We are applying pressure for a student partnership organisation to be created to give students more opportunities to engage in education quality
- Based on our wellbeing survey we launched the Keeping You in Mind mental health hub, to give students access to support and advice. NUS-USI use this to lobby the government on mental health policy, and by member unions to lobby their own institutions to improve student services. We delivered the best deal in the UK on EMA, announced in 2013, keeping January and June bonuses, keeping £30 payments and making EMA more responsive through increased income thresholds for families with more than one dependent child
- We’re making significant progress in work to try and deliver marriage equality and free, safe and legal access to abortion here
- We work with NUS and USI in the trilateral group, and internationally with European Students’ Union, to try and mitigate any negative impacts of Brexit
- NUS-USI carried out one of the largest surveys ever here on student mental health, with more than 3,000 responses, and we campaign to deliver increased mental health services for students
- We’ve delivered high quality research projects here, like the pound in your pocket and student wellbeing survey, which was used by UUSU and other organisations.
Vote YES for us to continue working for you:
- Lobbying to maintain the cap on tuition fees here in NI
- Student survey across NI on consent: Ulster University has already started work in this area and this NUS-USI research could help develop work at Ulster University on this issue. This will be the FIRST research of its kind for all students in NI. An evidence base of this size will allow us to lobby key decision makers and help institutions and SU’s to create sexual violence policy with clear pathways student reporting.
- Working to try and deliver marriage equality. NUS-USI is one of six founding members of the Love Equality coalition, working alongside The Rainbow Project, Amnesty International NI, NIC-ICTU, Cara-Friend and Here NI, to try and bring marriage equality to NI.
- Annually, UUSU officers are trained by NUS-USI to help reach their potential
- Using NUS’ strong and far-reaching platform to lobby to try and address any potential negative impacts of Brexit on students, and aiding UUSU on this matter
- NI conferences for LGBT+, women’s and disabled students’ groups, one of the largest LGBT+ student training events in Europe with USI
- Lobbying to try and deliver the return of devolved government here
- Applying pressure to try and deliver funding for student partnership to work on improving education quality
- Campaigning for legislation to protect students’ unions
VOTE YES to continue our nearly 50 year partnership
Since the early 1970s when Union of Students in Ireland and National Union of Students, joined forces and set up a regional office in Belfast, NUS-USI has been representing NI students. Today we represent almost 200,000 students in every college and university in NI, and campaign on their behalf in fields such as student hardship, health, equality and accommodation. We are approaching our 50th anniversary and passionately want UUSU to be there celebrating with us, in unity, alongside the rest of our member students’ unions from Queen’s, St Mary’s, Stranmillis, Belfast Met, SERC, SRC, SWC, NRC, NWRC and CAFRE.
We provide an infrastructure that helps individual students’ unions in NI to develop their own work through our research, training and development functions.
THE TRILATERAL IN ACTION!
Three for the price of one!
We continue to work with and be part of both NUS on a UK level and USI on an all-Ireland level, to represent students in NI. The Presidents of NUS, NUS-USI and USI regularly meet to discuss issues impacting on the students in NI, ranging from Brexit to supporting our SU members.
NUS-USI recently launched a #HometoV8te campaign alongside NUS’s Women’s campaign, to financially assist Irish students studying in the UK to travel home to vote in the referendum on the Eighth Amendment to the Irish constitution, in solidarity with our sister union USI and Students for Ch8ice.
VOTE YES TO NUS-USI
The student movement is stronger if it stays together. Being a member of NUS-USI brings significant benefits for UUSU as illustrated by this article. So remember, vote YES for a stronger collective student voice, vote YES to remaining in NUS-USI