The Above and Beyond the Call of Duty (ABCD) Award is chosen monthly by Students' Union staff to reward the work of our volunteers. We are pleased to announce this year’s first winner and runner up!
The first winner is our current BAME Students’ Rep Odette. She was nominated for her work on Black History Month where she worked tirelessly to create content and workshops for students to educate people as well as celebrate the black community. She organised people to run a series of workshops on topics such as natural hair as well as organising and taking part in podcasts that discussed important issues such as mental health. She also created different Black History Month Playlists for people to enjoy and organised artwork to be developed for the events to help with promotion. You can find out more about the events that took place and listen to the podcasts and playlists here: https://www.uclansu.co.uk/blackhistorymonth
She was also nominated for her recent campaigning for the mental health and well-being team at UCLan to employ a black counsellor who has lived experience. She has since met with senior leaders in the University to push them to fund this and has succeeded; she will now sit on the interview panel to ensure the successful candidate is right for the role. This is an amazing achievement that will help so many students and is a big win for student support and representation at UCLan!
In response to winning the award Odette said: “I’m really thankful to have been nominated for this award and to have won, I am both lucky and glad that I am in the position to make positive changes within the university for our BAME students. I hope to have achieved more before the end of the year starting with campaigning alongside our amazing Education Officer – Steph Lomas to decolonise the curriculum. We are running this in the hopes that our educative materials will reflect the reality of the multi-cultural society that we live in. I am also working with the wellbeing team in order to launch a mental health campaign targeted towards BAME students in the hopes that we destigmatise this topic in the BAME community encouraging BAME students to seek help if needed.”
The runner up for the first award was Pulse volunteer Alana- Jade Cooper who was nominated for her enthusiasm and team spirit during the welcome period in September.
Alana said: “It is truly an honour to be involved in such a positive group. Pulse has given me some amazing opportunities to grow my confidence in many ways, thank you so much for this."