The Representative Council elections of the Student Union of the University of Helsinki (HYY) are taking place this week. The Representative Council with its 60 elected members wields the highest power in the Student Union. Almost six hundred people are running for a position in the Council.
We interviewed one of the candidates to find out what motivates her to run and what she thinks are the biggest challenges facing the Student Union at the moment.
Who are you and what do you study at Helsinki?
I’m Heidi Ahola, a sociology major and a gender studies and social policy minor. I’ve also completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Russian Translation.
What made you want to run for the Representative Council?
I’ve studied here for a long time and during that time, I’ve seen how the position of students has radically deteriorated. The cuts that have been imposed on education over the past years have made it more challenging for HYY to do its job and represent students and their interests. That was my biggest motivator: I felt like I had to do something to make a difference and to ensure that things are done better in the future.
What issues are you focusing on in your campaign?
I want to make the Student’s Union more equal and ensure its overall well-being. I would like to see more wheelchair accessible places on campus, especially in the City Center Campus, where the situation is the worst. We absolutely need more spaces in which students can study or simply hang out. Not everyone can study at home, for whatever reasons, and the lack of spaces on campus can have a negative effect on student wellbeing and it can also hinder their studies. The risk of social exclusion and loneliness is also greater when people are forced away from campus to study.
Another thing that’s close to my heart is making studying more flexible. Students face different situations and teaching should accommodate these differences better. For example, some students have no choice but to work part-time during their studies so having courses with compulsory attendance really makes combining work and school difficult and thus also complicates students’ chances of graduating in time. There should also be more flexible ways of completing courses and coursework.
What would you like to achieve if you were elected?
HYY has a strategy paper to guarantee equal opportunities for everyone but I would like to see this paper get closer to students and become an integral part of student associations’ work. Overall, I would like to work towards rooting equality guidelines issued by the Union in the practice of all student associations. Finally, it would be great if more students felt like the Student Union plays an important role in university life. At the moment there’s a big gap between the Union and its members, many of whom see HYY as a distant actor. I would like to bridge this gap.
What do you think are the greatest challenges facing HYY at the moment?
Like I mentioned above, the distance between students and their Union. One indicator of this is the voter turnout in the Council elections which tends to be only around 30%. Many feel like voting in the elections makes no difference, even though it’s the Council that makes important decisions affecting students, such as how their membership fees are used. HYY is a unique organization in many ways: it’s one of the wealthiest Student Unions in the world, owns property in the middle of Helsinki and runs the HYY Group, so the way the Union is run is a big deal.
Can student politics really make a difference?
Yes, of course. You have to bear in mind that Students’ Union politics mainly focus on representing students in issues that affect their lives. However, HYY can and has in the past been able to extend its influence outside of the university as well, by lobbying for more student housing in Helsinki, for instance. If we don’t have competent people in the Council working for students, then who would stand up for us and represent our interests?
Why should everyone vote in the elections this week?
People that are elected make decisions that directly affect how your money used, so you shouldn’t play down their importance. Furthermore, in these elections one single vote can actually make a huge difference.
I know feminism is close to your heart. Do you think it’s possible to bring a feminist perspective into student politics, and would you do so if you were elected?
Absolutely. Feminism is something that can be applied to small practical things, like for instance the language used in meetings. I would absolutely try to bring it into my work if I were elected.
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Voting opens on October the 26th at 10 am. For more information on how to vote, visit HYY’s election site.
Photo by Iryna Demchyk