Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
I am a Crankstart scholar, and I am proud of it. For those who are unaware, the Crankstart scholarship is offered to Oxford students from lower household income backgrounds, and comes in the form of financial aid and career development help. Frankly, the support which the university provides for its scholars is pretty much unparalleled; […]
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COVID-19 poses a unique challenge to the lives of all people, but the effect on each individual is not the same. Cohorts with existing vulnerabilities are affected by the symptoms of the disease, but perhaps more so by the measures put in place to ‘stop the spread’ and ‘flatten the curve’. Rough sleepers, people in […]
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When I first heard of Charity Concierge, I couldn’t believe my ears. Free tickets to the Latitude Festival in exchange for a mere three shifts of menial labour – a little light tent pegging here, a spot of waitressing there – and the added benefit of raising money for an excellent charity? Count me in. […]
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Image description: a shelf of several textbooks arranged according to colour, creating an appearance resembling a rainbow. It’s Michaelmas term, and this means that the time has come for Just Like Us to run their annual recruitment drive for the LGBT+ Ambassador Programme for students aged 18-25. It also means that it has been an […]
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“you have to understand, no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land” – Warsan Shire, “Home” From civil wars, political and religious persecution, or tyranny; the decision to flee one’s country is often seen as a last resort, a risky journey considered safer than staying. Despite […]
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Oxford is definitely a city of contrasts. Architecturally, the old and the modern co-exist side by side, generally in happy juxtaposition to each other, occasionally in a more uneasy tension. When it comes to the relationship between town and gown, a history marked by occasional riots and violence, things haven’t always been straightforward. However, in […]
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Image Credit: Sofya Sudets There is a Boston Consulting Group recruiting event in full swing on Turl Street Kitchen’s compact staircases. Amidst the suits and savvy conversation, it seems almost surprising that the same space functions as the headquarters for Oxford Hub, an organisation founded in 2007 to connect students to local-facing charitable groups. Sofya […]
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In 2016, J.K. Rowling tweeted a series of responses to a request to share an appeal from a charity which offers volunteering opportunities in orphanages, explaining why she could never endorse their work: ‘I will never retweet appeals that treat poor children as opportunities to enhance Westerners’ CVs,’ ‘Voluntourism is one of the drivers of […]
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Much has been published criticising the phenomenon of ‘voluntourism’, whereby individuals (often students) mix foreign holidays with voluntary work for NGOs. With social media littered with images of westerners hugging young African children, it is easy to appreciate why critics accuse voluntourism of trivialising poverty, treating it as a spectacle, rather than a complex issue […]
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Project Soup saw in 2nd week with a lot of crusty bread and yummy social action (did I mention the soup?). Over 80 students and Oxford residents came together in East Oxford Community Centre to share soup, cake and live music. The main feature of the night was listening to pitches from 6 different social […]
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Over Easter, almost 50 students from a number of different colleges travelled to the migrant camp in Calais to offer personal and medical expertise, legal advice, translation skills and deliver donated supplies to refugees. The largest volunteer team, Oxford2Calais, included 8 lawyers, 14 medics and 15 translators who spoke Arabic, Farsi and Urdu. It is […]
Continue ReadingSakina Haider wonders whether volunteering abroad is in fact damaging communities rather than helping them
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