Written by Ella Georgene Murray.
STAR is a society that has changed a lot over the last few years, but it always seems to be full of students who realise that studying injustice often feels removed, and a little pointless, so they turn to a group who try to make some change, however local and small-scale.Â
Edinburgh STAR is part of the STAR national network, with groups across the UK. We receive a lot of support from the national team, regarding campaign ideas, training and much more, but most of the work we do is self-directed, unique to our location. We have fundraising, volunteering and campaigning teams, but most of the time we work on things together, trying to get as many people involved as possible.Â
Volunteering has grown a lot over the last year or so. Currently we volunteer doing donation drops, helping with a community fridge and attending a conversation café, which aims to help new Scots to learn English, as well as creating a community. Most of this work involves partnering with The Welcoming, an organisation in Edinburgh which supports refugees and migrants. Being part of a wider support network is something that’s important to STAR, and makes sure our work is useful, as well as allowing us to reach beyond the student community.Â
We’ve just recruited two new campaign coordinators, so we’re really excited about the projects they’ll get working on. We’ve done a huge mix of campaigns over the years, getting involved with STAR national’s larger events, as well protesting against the Illegal Migration Bill and the proposed Rwanda scheme, and even a couple of our members travelling for a ‘No to Hassockfield’ demonstration outside a women’s immigration removal centre in County Durham. We try to balance campaigns on local, and UK wide level, as we understand that the experience of refugees in the UK is a function of many factors at all scales, so our work should reflect this.Â
When it comes to fundraising, we try to use events to also raise awareness as well as build connections across the student and wider community. We’ve run open mic nights where some incredible work has been shared, and we’ve worked more with Edinburgh global this year to further reach out the international student community and hope to expand this. We ran a Ceilidh with Slurp (Students for Action on Homelessness) at the beginning of the semester which was really successful and we hope to run something similar in the spring.Â
Our meetings also aim to inform those attending. This semester, they’ve varied from a talk on refugee law to the screening of an interview with Rania Obead we made last year, as part of the ‘Refugees of Edinburgh’ campaign. We open the sessions anyone who feels they would like to speak, which is an amazing way to learn from each other. STAR is always open to new ideas, recommendations, collaborations as well as any criticism (constructive if possible). We understand that within the student community there is a wealth of talent, knowledge, enthusiasm and as well as anger at the fundamental injustice of borders, and the violence this produces. We would love to get as many people involved as possible, in whatever way, so please join us. Our meetings are at 6.30 on a Tuesday evening in LG.08- 40 George Square and our Instagram is ‘star.edinburgh’.
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