It's me, hi!

Heya pals, I'm Joel and I study Pharmaceutical Science here at Queen's. I am an avid activist and campaigner. I feel I am well suited to campaign and fight on your behalf for change, and to make every single one of your voices heard, listened to and respected. I have also been waiting 21 years for an official ASD diagnosis, so I am well aware of how lacking support services are here. The disabled community is vast and each individual is unique, but we all have one thing in common. We are consistently and systemically let down by our university. I intend to represent the disabled student population to the best of my ability, by ensuring that there is always someone in every meeting room fighting and campaigning for you.

My aims

Further promote mental health and workshops for disabled students - Recently, dedicated workshops for neurodivergent students were ran by the Student's Union to great effect due to student request. However, this has not occurred since. The issues faced by our disabled students are totally unique, and as such so should the support available to them be. I feel this is absolutely vital and I will work to ensure these workshops are run consistently throughout the school year.

Improve inclusion of disabled students and educate the university - In order to empower our marginalised groups, we must fight for increased inclusivity. University lecturers lack the knowledge to adequately accommodate students with disabilties, and some stubbornly cling to archaic views. Inclusivity should be the standard. Awareness and training programmes must be implemented, along with ensuring that all policies across Queen's are non-discriminatory.

Improve accessibility across campus - Disabled students already face a myriad challenges, getting around their campus and integrating with university life should not be one of them. Yet many find Queen's to be underwhelming in terms of accessibility. Is every building wheelchair and cane accessible? Can students access textbooks in braille, or are there teaching staff that can communicate with them in sign language? The answer is overwhelming no. The best approach to making QUB more accessible is to involve as many disabled students as possible to help plan and design improvements to campus. This must be truly transparent, so that no one is left out of the conversation that will affect countless students.

Fighting for inclusion and against injustice.