By Athira Liyana ABD Latiff
GOMBAK, 27 May 2022: Unfolding his manifesto yesterday, the candidate for the Deputy President III seat of IIUM Student Union (IIUMSU) 2022 election, Ahmad Nur Faris promised to represent the voices of the students at the highest level.
Alongside the slogan “In Faris We Trust”, Faris shared his aspiration in contesting the seat to continue “empowering the voices of the students’ concerns at the highest level, and maintain the relevance of student union’s identity”.
A third-year second-semester student from the Kulliyyah of Languages and Management (KLM), Pagoh campus, Faris explained that he intends for the Student Union (SU) to be acknowledged as a student-focused body that embraces integrity and guardianship of the students within the institution.
In an interview with IIUMToday, Faris emphasised that his manifesto offers a firm stance that ponders the well-being, welfare, and representation of IIUM students – particularly students of the Pagoh campus.
Considering that the Pagoh campus is relatively new as compared to Gombak and Kuantan campuses, the Pagoh campus lacks several aspects to facilitate the students to the utmost standards.
With Faris’ candidacy for the Deputy President seat for the upcoming SU election, he stressed the issues commonly faced on the Pagoh campus with which each element of his manifesto offered to students contains the vision of upholding the students’ concerns at the highest level.
Two aspects of Faris’ manifestos are:
To put IIUM Pagoh students’ welfare as the utmost priority
With regards to the lack of facilities and utilities offered to IIUM Pagoh students, Faris believes that securing the welfare of the students is important so that they are represented correctly. Hence, there is a need to prioritise the concerns shared by the students to facilitate the highest standards in both aspects of education and livelihood on campus.
“If I were to be the Deputy President, I aim to refine students’ well-being, safety, and most importantly, improving food scarcity on campus to ensure a comfortable living and learning space for the students,” Faris shared.
To inject activism and unionism among Pagoh students
Faris believes that student activism and unionism play hand-in-hand in order to be successful. Faris notes that “unionism at its core focuses on activism.” Hence, Faris envisions the presence of activism among all levels to establish the long-lasting relevance of SU in Pagoh so that students for years to come will still feel the need to have an understanding of why they should keep the relevancy of the student union. A parallel between students’ activism and unionism becomes a great contribution to the student union in its role as part of the bigger stakeholders in the university in preparing and providing an enhancement and amplified platforms for students to participate in activities and unionism.
Faris wishes that all IIUM students would understand the relevance and reasons for establishing a student body. He highlights that students should also be aware of their rights and responsibilities to give support to the student body.
He calls on the students to exercise their democratic rights to vote for leaders whom they believe will deliver their promises, and most importantly represent the voices of students at the highest level. ***