This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at U Ottawa chapter.

Our amazing Events & Marketing team

Nicolette is a Third year student in French with a minor in Women studies and Sona a First year Masters student in Management. What do they have in common? They are both on the Events & Marketing team of our Her Campus chapter! While Nicolette is the head of the team, Sona is our head of Social Media. You may not hear about them a lot, but that does not mean that they do not work hard. Our recent fashion show had a great turnout and was definitely a successful night full of laughs and that allowed us to raise over 1000 $ for Lupus! This week, we are taking a moment to appreciate members of our amazing Her Campus team, because after all, they are campus celebrities.

Here is what the girls had to say:

Are you involved anywhere else on campus?

Nico: President of Equal Voice uOttawa, Vice President of Sigma Psi Alpha sorority and head of Marketing & Events for HC uOttawa

Sona: My classmates and I recently started the Master of Science in Management Association, for which I am the Marketing and Communications Officer. Our main goal is to organize events where MSc Management students can interact and get to know each other outside the classroom. In September, we hope to mentor incoming students and help them with their transition into grad school. I did my undergraduate degree in England, where I was a part of the Czech and Slovak Society, but I feel like there are many more volunteering opportunities in Ottawa, and I definitely want to take advantage of them while I am here.

Michael and Nico, our MCs for the night

Why did you want to join Her Campus?

Nico: Because of my background in Women’s Studies, anything that I could volunteer with that allows women’s voices to be heard sounds not only like fun to me but also a great way to get involved on campus! After reading up on HC, it seemed like a great initiative especially since I know the editor in chief and I heard of her plans to include some bilingual aspects in to our chapter of the magazine which was also super important to me as well!

Sona:  I had seen the Her Campus website a couple of years ago and thought it was a cool concept. The articles were interesting and very relatable, since they were written by university students like me. When I saw that there was a Her Campus chapter staring at U Ottawa, I thought it would be a great chance to get more involved on campus. There are not many clubs for graduate students and our classes are very small, so I thought joining Her Campus would be a great way to get to know other girls with similar interests as me. I was interested in the Social Media Manager position, because as a Business student, I took many Marketing courses and I wanted to put what I had learnt into practice. I really enjoy managing our Social Media pages and would like to continue doing something similar in the future.

Sona giving away candy to our guests

Why a fashion show?

Nico and Sona: It took us a long time to decide what type of event we would like to organize. Some of the people on our Marketing and Events team had experience with organizing fashions shows in the past, which helped us pull it off. We thought that a fashion show would be a great way to engage with our readers and help spread the word about Her Campus. It’s not often that there is a fashion show on campus, which gave us a unique opportunity to attract lots of fashion conscious girls to our event. We didn’t want it to be just a typical fashion show, so we included a musical performance too. The fashion show also allowed us to get involved with our local community, to secure sponsorships and hopefully create lasting relationships from which we can benefit again in the future.

Why raise money for Lupus ?

Nico: Lupus is a disease that effects mainly women aged 15-40. That is our demographic of readers. We have all heard of breast cancer and leukemia yet lupus is seen almost as much as leukemia and we rarely hear about it! Our team felt that this would have been a great way of spreading awareness!

Sona: Lupus is a disease that affects nine times more often in women than in men. It especially affects women between the ages of 15 and 45. Since our target audience is right in the middle of that demographic, we thought that the cause would really resonate with them. While planning the fashion show, I have had many people tell me they have a family member or friend that has been affected by lupus, which has opened my eyes to how common the disease is. Lupus can be difficult to diagnose and there currently is no cure, that’s why it is important that we raise awareness of the disease.

What do you think is one of the biggest issues women face on campus ?

Nico: I believe that as uOttawa students we are very lucky to have support systems in place for any type of issue that women might face on campus such as the Women’s recourse center, the Pride center, the Bilingualism center, the international house etc. All women of campus are unique and might face their own unique challenges just hope they all know about all the services at their disposal!

Sona: I think that one of the biggest issues women face on campus is trying to find a balance between school, work, volunteering, friends, and boyfriends. I think as girls, we put so much pressure on ourselves to succeed in everything we do, that we sometimes forget to take a break to eat or sleep.

Anything to tell our readers ?

Nico: MERCI!/THANK YOU! Thank you for reading, for facebooking/liking, tweeting,/ following and instagraming. Thank you also for coming out and supporting our fabulous fashion show! I hope you enjoy all the work the team has put in! xxo Nico

Sona: I would tell our readers to make sure they take the time to relax and really enjoy their university experience, because those 4 years go by quicker than you think!

Photo credits:

https://www.facebook.com/group…

Nicolette and Sona: Strutting Away Lupus !

We wanna slide into your DMs