How has the students’ union had a significant impact on the local community?

Over the past two years Northumbria Students’ Union has made Newcastle a safer city, bringing about a 50% year reduction in burglaries of student properties through its ‘Not if, but when’ awareness campaign. We built on this success through lobbying the City Council to ban letting boards, used by burglars to identify properties, and promoting their eventual consultation on this. This benefitted students and local residents who rightly see these boards as blighting the appearance of their streets and worry about crime. 103 students took part in the consultation, leading to the City Council submitting a proposal to the Secretary of State for powers to ban all letting boards in student residential areas.

This year our Community Reps led student integration into the community through (a) generating student response to City Council consultation on planned cuts, drafting a summary sheet to inform students, encouraging over 100 responses and taking part in city wide march, and (b) producing 5,000 ‘Halls to Houses’ booklet to help students moving into rented accommodation understand their role in their local area, how to be a good resident, the services at their disposal and the opportunities to volunteer and shape their neighbourhood. This year the Sabbatical Team successfully pushed for improved lighting and safety in the pedestrian areas in the building of the University’s new 1,000 bed hall in the centre of Gateshead. This development represents a substantial regeneration of the city centre, housing community and shopping amenities and is opposite the metro station so these improvements benefit both thousands of students and local residents.

In 2012 5,000 students took part in a Health Needs Survey in 2012 which will be used to inform future public health planning and address inequality.

Our Volunteer Northumbria programme supported 27 projects, benefiting over 3500 members of the community. Two stand out; the Hospital Arts Project has been recognised by Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust, which has invited them to speak at a members and governors event on Creative Environments with a specific focus on dementia. The Debating Society set up and ran a community programme teaching debating skills to school children who lack opportunities to practice debating or public speaking. Supported by Alan Milburn and Tony Blair, the Society works with seven schools across the north east and beyond, leading to a competition in June 2013. In 2012 our Garden Makeover project won the Cooperative People and Environment Achievement Community Award for its impact on the local environment in Newcastle and our No Car Superstar Project was runner up in the Responsible Travel Category.

Our new student friendly lettings agency, NU:Lets, started this year with the goal of improving the student rental market through driving up standards of service across the city.

How has the union demonstrated evidence of best practice in planning, communication, team working and evaluation?

Most of this work is entirely student led; Hospital Arts and Debating Society and our Community Reps started their projects on their own initiative. The Union provided training and support that enabled those students to put their ideas into practice including agreeing objectives and a key action plan and helping find resources. Delivery of community-based projects is done through student Project Leaders who coordinate the project and recruit a team of volunteers. This facilitates effective communication by cascading messages easily from staff to project leaders to student volunteers. Finally, we support students to gather direct feedback from beneficiaries in order to evaluate the project’s impact. Where the Sabbatical Team has led work, such as promoting consultations, the Union has encouraged student participation through creating summary analysis of the issues that are easily accessible to students.

What evidence of creativity in the delivery of work objectives through events, activities and communication channels?

Our ‘Not if, but when’ burglary awareness campaign this year has been innovative in the campaigning techniques used and in the ways the key messages have been communicated to students. We visited the top ten most burgled streets in Newcastle and placed yellow branded balloons in insecure properties. The balloons displayed the logo and a website address (notifbutwhen.co.uk). Through shock tactics and creating mystery through a teaser publicity campaign, we drew attention to the website. The website and twitter then revealed shocking statistics of crime and gave tips on how students could protect themselves from crime. The campaign was city wide with the brand appeared on the Metro with a QR code.

What evidence of the ability to effectively utilise resources within the student body, local stakeholders and/or the media?

We have over 1,250 student volunteers giving over 10,000 hours of time this year for community benefit. The Not If But When campaign drew together the Students’ Union, Police, City Council and Metro to launch a single campaign through word of mouth, website and social media, newspapers, display boards, Adbikes and tshirts.

Through encouraging greater levels of student response to consultations we have been able to leverage the resources of public bodies to act in interests of students and the community for example in pushing the City Council
to firstly hold a consultation on Lettings Board which then had a strong student response leading to the proposal to the Secretary of State.

What quantifiable impact or change to the target community or beneficiaries have been made?

The most obvious impact has been the 50% reduction in crime, the proposal for powers to ban Lettings Boards and the physical changes to the new build for halls in Gateshead to improve pedestrian safety. We estimate over 3500 Newcastle residents directly benefit through our community projects, by providing services that address community needs that otherwise would not have been possible to deliver due to the funding and staffing required. For example, the Garden Makeover project renovated over 40 gardens of residents unable to do it themselves and Hospital Arts improves the lives of elderly people.