Reporter
Manifesto Analysis
Pritasha Kariappa is set to be the SRC’s next Vice President of Student Activities, as she is running for election unopposed.
Currently the Charities, Clubs and Societies Officer, Kariappa has some experience on the SRC and has worked closely with current VP of Student Activities, Mhairi Harris, throughout the year on projects such as setting up a Raising and Giving Committee dedicated to fundraising. Kariappa also has experience organising cross-campus fundraising such as this year’s Live Below the Line campaign involving all four student bodies.
Were Kariappa able to achieve the aims that she has set out in her manifesto, she could prove successful in the role however, she remains unclear about how she intends to implement many of her ideas. For example, she advocates the need to further promote Freshers’ week activities as many have become poorly attended in recent years, but her manifesto does not elaborate on how she intends to solve the issue. In the interview, Kariappa mentioned using social media to do so, however, this has been unsuccessful in the past.
The experience Kariappa has gained in her current role has also given her awareness of the lack of volunteers that the SRC often struggles with, and she intends to combat this by setting up a volunteer team at the beginning of the year to utilise as needed. This is a good, fairly original idea and would be excellent if she is able to organise it effectively but does overlook the fact that much of this work in running events is currently done by council members. Her description of her intentions for the team lack detail, though, and she seems to intend to allow volunteers to opt in to certain events rather than being automatically enlisted, which may lead to the same problem as there has been under the current system. Kariappa also says that she wishes to support student media throughout her time in office, although she is again unclear on how she intends to go about this.
Ideas which seem especially strong include moving out the SRC’s “hall crawl”, to provide information about their work to students, at the beginning of first semester instead of second semester, and her continued commitment to making the SRC website more functional for students by adding an events calendar and a search bar.
On the whole, her manifesto is positive and contains little content that could be construed as being offensive or objectionable. If she is able to overcome the hurdle of creating concrete plans to achieve her intended goals, there will hopefully be little to complain about during her time as VP.
