A new club has been established for Otago students who identify as people of colour (PoC). They’re aiming to “build a community” for people to bond over, and are ultimately hoping to become a “strong advocate and voice for the PoC community” here.
Emika, the founder of the Otago Students of Colour Association (OSOCA), said she wanted to “fill a gap”. She told Critic Te Arohi that most current clubs focus on catering for people from a certain country, but that there were “often unspoken rules and expectations about who can join”. As an alternative, she said, OSOCA aims to act as more of an “umbrella group… one which will unite people who have had different experiences”.
While Emika has been considering setting up a club like this for a while, a few things have worked to convince her that this is something which is “really needed”. She pointed out the results of the 2021 Critic Te Arohi Census - of the 14.1% of respondents who considered themselves PoC, over half said they had experienced “racism, hate or discrimination based on [their] race or ethnicity” during their time at Uni. The recent review of the PE School and wider Uni that found “systemic racism, discrimination and bullying” was also highlighted as a problem: “If that’s what happening up there, it will really reflect on the culture down here [amongst students],” Emika explained.
Emika said it was important that her club be really open: “I don’t want to gatekeep what being a person of colour is.” She hopes to “build a community… where people can support each other and bond over shared experiences”. Having friends who are PoC, she said, made a real difference to her emotional support when she experienced racism and discrimination, and she hopes this club can provide that same sort of community for others.
The axing of Clubs Day has made promotion and recruitment really difficult, although Emika says OUSA has been “very good about it”. Despite hampered promotion, eight people have already signed up through the OUSA Clubs & Socs website, which Emika herself was surprised about. The next step, she said, is to begin sending posters out to halls of residence.
While her first priority is to build community and allow PoC students to bond with each other, Emika says she would love to see “a community strong enough to be a voice and an advocate for the PoC community”. She’d like to begin with a potluck, to let people “get to know each other over kai”.
Students can learn more about OSOCA by emailing osoca@gmail.com and sign up through the secure portal on the OUSA website here.