Campaign SupaNova: Putting the Focus on Social Justice

On Thursday 27th of September, Campaign Supanova, organised by campaign coordinator Polly Bark, descended on the University of Manchester Students’ Union. Months in the making, over 30 campaigns were present to share the ideas and work they have carried out across Manchester.
The concept of putting the spotlight on the university’s campaigns is not new; in previous years, a conference has been held with the same intention of giving campaigns a space to speak. However, after focus groups with students, it was decided to introduce the festival format in 2018 to give the campaigns a bigger chance to showcase their work. Although the campaigns do participate in the Fresher’s Fair, Campaign Supanova aimed to give a more focused approach to presenting the work done by the students. With social justice being a large part of the Student’s Union, the campaign organisers hoped to “inspire even more activism, social justice, volunteering and charity work”, according to Bark. Bark also highlighted that the festival did not solely focus on campaigning but on community work as a whole, with a stall dedicated to teaching students how to campaign and how to get involved in the community in a variety of ways.
Lasting the entire day, the campaign featured campaign stalls, Thirsty Girls DJ, spoken word from artists such as January and Maria Cicortas, and art from the Manchester Print Fair. One campaign stall, Make Misogyny a Hate Crime, gave a passionate description of their work, highlighting the fact that 45% of women have been sexually harassed. Their stall drummed up attention for their Women’s Rally on the 5th of December, where they intend to face the mayor and present their case, and encourage anyone who supports their cause to attend. Numerous other stalls displayed similar passion, and the number of students involved demonstrated the scale of social justice and community work within the university.

Interested in getting involved with any of the work mentioned in this article? Check out: https://manchesterstudentsunion.com/campaigns