The Union of Students’ in Ireland (USI) will be mandated to support the establishment of ethnic minority support groups on college campuses following a motion at the union’s national congress this week.
The motion was proposed by Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU), with Welfare and Equality officer Hamza Bana speaking in its defence.
Bana established an ethnic minority support group on campus last year, a first step in a broader campaign for similar measures across the island.
In a TCDSU survey in 2023, 90% of respondents favoured the establishment of an ethnic minority support group, with a further 84.5% stressing “the importance of a therapist/facilitator being a member of an ethnic minority group”.
Speaking to Trinity News after the vote, Bana described it as “a great success”.
“It’s very exciting to see, but its also very important to see that actual steps are being taken to make sure all ethnic minorities across Ireland are being taken care of”, he said.
“It’s a massive win and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how it rolls out in the next few months”, he concluded.
Bana wrote on his instagram story that “it’s not enough to be not racist, we have to be unapologetically anti-racist and show the far-right that anti-immigrant rhetoric has no place in Éire”.
TCDSU President Jenny Maguire wrote, also on instagram, that “with the rise of outward racist riots, it’s important students have a space where they can speak freely”.
“Whiteness is not neutral, colleges are leaving their students of colour and ethnic minority students behind and upholding whiteness”, she concluded.
The USI’s national congress, in which member institutions provide updates to their work and vote on motions for future endeavours, will continue until the end of this week.
