With new students arriving at university at the moment, student ambassadors Connor Dixon and Katie Chambers pulled out all the stops to host an amazing welcome event for those arriving to the region’s very own University of Sunderland.
As the students arrived, they were encouraged to mark where they are originally from on a world map with a pin. It was filling up nicely while I was there with students from far flung destinations such as Nigeria, USA, Brazil, Pakistan as well as slightly closer to home in Ireland. It was also great to see the map of the UK being filled up with home students from hundreds of miles away also choosing to study at the University of Sunderland.
Connor and Katie specifically decided to put on this welcome event after images of Sunderland’s far right riots made headlines for the wrong reason across the world in the summer. They could only imagine how international students in particular would now feel about coming to this city to study.
It was only in July, after all when racist thugs went on the rampage in Sunderland (and many other places in the UK) which included setting fire to the citizen advice bureau and cars.
If I felt frightened watching these scenes unfold, how on earth would students who don’t know Sunderland feel about the fact they had signed up to live and study here in the autumn? I talked to some of them about this and most, unsurprisingly, had indeed felt nervous after the scenes of violence they had seen in the city.
Connor and Katie, who are now post-graduate students at the university, took the new arrivals under their wing as did some other existing students at this welcome event.
I was honoured to be asked to speak at this event as a member of the team which cleaned up after said riots. I wanted to reassure the students coming here that those people rioting absolutely did not represent the city and that the clearing up team, which outnumbered the rioters by hundreds, were the real locals. I discussed how some of the rioters had actually been found to come from as far away as 200 miles anyway. I described all the anti-racist demos which had also followed in response to the riots around the North East and that the region has always had a proud tradition of holding such protests in any case.
Reassurance and a great welcome
There had, of course, been riots around the whole of the UK but Sunderland had appeared to have been shown often more than other places in the media. I explained that this may have been due to its notoriety over Brexit. Again, reassurance was given that, contrary to popular belief, Sunderland’s vote to leave the European Union wasn’t anywhere near the highest – in fact it doesn’t even make the top twenty – those results were actually mostly to be found in Lincolnshire and the East Midlands. The confusion comes from the fact that Sunderland was the first to declare vote leave and that is the image that was beamed around the world in 2016. It was also explained that the reasons behind voting leave in the Brexit referendum were often extremely complex and sometimes nothing to do with immigration at all. For example, after talking to locals after the referendum, a theme that came up consistently was that some people’s vote to leave had more to do with them not liking the then Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron who headed up the remain campaign than actually wanting to leave the EU in earnest. Sunderland is, after all, a Labour stronghold. I assured each and every one of the students that they were truly welcome to this city.
Fun!
With the elephant in the room having been addressed, the night then consisted of fun, fun, fun! Outstanding singing and music was provided by music graduates, Connor and Katie who then invited the audience to have a go themselves which they most certainly did with gusto!
After sampling the delicious food and drink on offer, I left them to sing the night away clutching a welcome pack in tow! Huge thanks to Connor and Katie for putting on this event which really does represent Sunderland!
