Registration was a lot of hard work but at the end successful. I was able to work on a few cases related to different cases. A few of the issues I dealt with:
- A student who had not indicated that they require residence
- Students who slept in tents during the 0-week and for whom I was able to get emergency accommodation for
- -students who had transferred from other institutions and wanted residence allocation
- Students rooms that needed fumigation
- Students whose NSFAS had not paid out( these were later on sorted out)
- Students who were waiting for their appeals to be approved and therefore lost their residence space
- International students who had payment issues because of the political climate in Zimbabwe
- Postgraduate students who wanted to be allocated to a postgraduate residence
- Postgraduate students who wanted to be shifted to different postgraduate residences
In total, I worked with 23 of these cases. Out of these, I was able to assist the majority of them besides 2 students. Sincere gratitude goes to Ms. Desiree Wicks, as she played a pivotal role in the assistance of these students.
These are other things that I have done within the portfolio:
- Meal Change Plan of Action –
I had the privilege of meeting with Mr. Wright, the Food Services Manager. Upon our discussion, I raised the issue of the Meal Review survey which was not as fruitful as we (Residence Representative Committee) had hoped for last year.
Therefore, I made a proposal to Mr. Wright about doing the survey differently. I made the suggestion that this time, the petition survey be made available online, preferably on RUconnected in an effort to reach the student body, at large.
This is how our proposed plan of action is scheduled to take place:
- The SRC Hall Reps will gather information from their halls as to which foods students do not necessarily enjoy or eat. (3 items per food group)
- After gathering this information, the Hall reps and I will then meet to decide on the final food items (3 items per meal type), that students would like to be changed
- These options will then be made available online for voting
- The food item with the most votes under each meal type will then be submitted to Mr. Wright as a food item to be changed.
In this regard, I am at the stage of getting the survey uploaded onto RuConnected so that students can vote.
Toiletry drives –
During a meeting with the SRC Hall Reps, it was determined that not all halls have a toiletry drive for students, others do. For the halls without, it was then decided in the meeting that, instead of making such as drive as part of an SRC initiative, hall reps will make sure these happen in their halls.
Unisex Residences –
I am currently spearheading a task team that is working on making the proposal for the Unisex residences. At the moment, we are at the stage of doing a tremendous amount of research and benchmarking. I can safely say that there is definitely progress.
Lights & Safety –
For the sake of holding each stakeholder accountable, I have requested from the CPU that I receive a weekly update on which lights and SOS Buttons so that I can send those out to the student body as a way of reporting back to the student body.
The student body communicated to me regarding some lights that do not work as you go past/ after Nelson Mandela Hall. I have reported this and Mr. Koopman from Electrical Services says he is looking towards solutions to keep those lights on even during load shedding.
I am waiting for a resolution from their end.