Communities & Equality Officer

mia robillard-day

My name’s Mia. I do Art History and Drama with employment experience. I was supposed to do study abroad, but COVID, alas. I’m in my final year and I go to the gym a lot, I do a lot of advocacy online — I do a lot of social media stuff to do with mental health and eating disorders. So I work a lot in that area. I do a lot of charity, I work with Beat a lot, which is the English eating disorder charity.

WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO BE communities & equality officer?

I’ve had a lot of negative experiences at the Uni myself as a disabled student and also watching how my friends have been treated a lot by the University, not just by students but also by lecturers themselves. I think that we have a huge issue in the way in which lecturers who are supposedly meant to be really educated in their fields, even lecturers who are lecturing on race theory and similar topics saying totally inappropriate things. My very close friend was asked multiple times how she speaks such good English when English is her first language. It’s just a continual issue within the university and on my year out I ended up making the equality and diversity and inclusion strategy for the company, which was the first strategy they’d had of that kind. I was able to put in place monthly training sessions on how to talk about certain topics, and that’s something that I would really like to put in place in the role; platforming different students voices to make it a better and more educated space in general, so that students feel safe.

how will you ensure all groups and communities are represented by the guild?

I think what’s really important and an issue that continually happens in roles like this, especially taken on by white students, is we tend to homogenize different minority groups, when actually their concerns are all very unique. Rosemary Campbell Stephens termed the term ‘Global Majority’, which includes Black, Asian, Brown, dual heritage, indigenous to the global South and all have been racialized as ethnic minorities. These groups make up around 80 per cent of the world’s population but I think we often overlook what a huge role these groups have in our student body. I would like to find ways to make sure that their unique voices are platformed such as holding more forums and training sessions and give that as paid opportunities for students.

what do you think is one underrepresented group which the guild could be doing more to support?

I think that almost every minority group is underrepresented in their own ways. I think because the ways in which we talk about different ethnic groups and different minority groups we bunch it into one issue. I represent the disabled community, but am only representative of a very small part of that community because I’m autistic, so I’m not physically disabled, so I don’t understand entirely the concerns of other students who may have physical disabilities. For me with autism, I know that I’ve had a lot of really negative experiences, once a boy shouted across the class ‘You’re so autistic’, and when I told my lecture about it he didn’t deal with it, I had to deal with it myself. There’s a massive issue with putting it back onto that group to do that labour of explaining ourselves when really we should be protected by the Guild and by staff members. It’s really important that in the Guild we have people who are part of minority groups that can understand, and even if they’re not from that group, can listen with empathy.

What is your BIGGEST WEAKNESS?

What is your MOST MEMORABLE NIGHT OUT IN EXETER?

I would say my biggest weakness is that I do struggle sometimes with crowds. Because of my autism I have to do things a little bit differently, so I think that I can struggle in bigger groups and sometimes with public speaking. Some things coming up in this election such as hustings I might find really difficult and may have to ask for accommodations, but I think it’s important that we show those accommodations, especially in the spotlight of different people.

Oh my gosh. I’m not a big clubber, but my one night we went to Unit 1 and my friend found an inflatable microphone which was quite funny. She was was going around talking to everyone with the microphone and asking them ridiculous questions, that was quite fun.