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Contact our Student Action Network

If you have a question about our student groups get in touch:

students@amnesty.org.uk

020 7033 1729

Amnesty International UK
17-25 New Inn Yard
London
EC2A 3EA

Meet STAN: The Student Action Network Committee

The Student Action Network committee - known as 'STAN' - is a committee of ten elected student activists.

What does STAN do?

STAN committee organisers support the running and development of Amnesty International UK’s student groups around the UK. The committees' aims are to support Amnesty Student groups to win human rights victories on campuses, identify and train leaders within our movement, and to grow our student network.

Each committee member oversees a particular region of the country also leading on specific projects and campaigns.

If you’ve ever got a question, want some advice or suggestions about planning and running an event or campaign, just get in touch – they’d be happy to chat!

Contact

Feel free to contact the committee. Their joint email address and first point of call is stan@amnesty.org.uk

Information for each committee member is listed below.

 

This year's STAN committee

Alba Andrés Sánchez - Scotland

Tell us a story about yourself or someone else that made you get involved with human rights and social justice.

Hey! Hi! I’m Alba and my pronouns are she/her and I am a fourth-year International Relations student at the University of Edinburgh. I got involved in social justice from a young age through feminism and women's rights. For context, I come from Spain, a country with high rates of gender-based violence and sexism and many of my close ones have experienced this firsthand. My interest in protecting human rights also developed by witnessing police brutality during protests in Catalonia. Within my degree, I have also enjoyed learning about social justice and systematic oppression through gender studies, feminist theory, and post-colonial theory, and many more! However, when I joined my university’s Amnesty International society was when I truly learned the most about human rights and social justice; especially, LGBTQ+ rights, refugee rights, intersectionality and activism, and the Stop Killer Robots campaign:)

Athina Bohner - Scotland

University of Glasgow

Tell us a story about yourself or someone else that made you get involved with human rights and social justice.

Having been raised by parents who immigrated to Germany from Eastern Europe, I felt an urgent sense of responsibility to support asylum seekers settling into Germany in 2017. In order to help refugees practice their German skills, I volunteered at a language café in my neighborhood of Hamburg. I remember a particularly touching conversation I had with a woman from Syria and her two young sons. She told me about the fear and heartbreak she experienced while fleeing the civil war by boat. To this day, I think about the cheerful little boy, aged 5, who told me that “all he wants is for everyone to be alive and be friends”. In response, I organised an awareness campaign about child refugees around the world in collaboration with UNICEF Hamburg and Plan International. Looking back, I think those emotional conversations with refugee children truly sparked my passion for human rights.

Laura Gent - South East

Newcastle University

Tell us a story about yourself or someone else that made you get involved with human rights and social justice.

I don’t have a specific story to tell but, I have always loved food, not really in the way it tastes but in meals and making food and sharing it with the people around you. I study nutrition and am interested in the way food nurtures us. But the production of food has been co-opted by systems that are destroying our bodies, our planet and tearing us all apart. This injustice is what fuels me to be involved in human rights. And I suppose my goal would be for more people to see something as day-to-day as the breakfast they are eating as a political action that can make a change.

Leah Ennis - Northern Ireland & Wales

Queen's University Belfast

Tell us a story about yourself or someone else that made you get involved with human rights and social justice.

When I was a member of my city’s youth council in Germany, I got to meet a person who had fled their home country of Syria, where they were a practising pharmacist. Although they were highly qualified, spoke German very well for such a short time and were ready to start working as a pharmacist again, they had to get a second-level education as they lost all their documentation and proof of qualification in the war. Despite all of these experiences and setbacks, they were remarkably optimistic and positive about starting and leading a different life and being an active member of the youth council. Ever since and especially after starting to study International Relations and Conflict Studies, I have become more engaged with issues of human rights relating to migration, critically studying domestic politics as well as foreign policies.

Lilli Duberley - London

New College of the Humanities

Tell us a story about yourself or someone else that made you get involved with human rights and social justice.

While I was in Secondary School and Sixth form I felt very cut off from the rest of the world, as though I could have very little impact on the world. I was also very closeted at this time and had to constantly correct others language towards queer people, which didn't help. I felt a strong affinity towards the LGBTQ+ community while simultaneously denying my own queerness. So when I saw an ad to be a part of Amnesty International's Rise Up! program I finally felt as though I would be able to make an impact. Travelling up to London and being in a space with some other queer people made me feel confident in my own plans for campaigning. I then started to plan my campaigning around improving education around LGBTQ+ issues in school. This way the students would not be the people correcting their teachers and their peers.

Mariam Tzannatos - London

London School of Economics 

Tell us a story about yourself or someone else that made you get involved with human rights and social justice.

Two people who were instrumental in shaping my interest are UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Philipo Grandi. During their week-long visit to Lebanon, I job-shadowed them during their meetings with other UN officials, government and civil society members, and refugee camps. Their work exposed me to the complexities of policy-making and finding the balance between human rights and politics. Another individual who fueled my interest is civil rights veteran and contemporary and friend of Martin Luther King Jr., Mark Levy. In 2018, I attended the summer program at Columbia University on Law and Social Justice where he concluded the course saying “he has passed the torch to us”. His words, combined with the experiences of the program where we worked extensively with social advocacy practitioners and the US District Attorney on how the law can be used as a tool for social change.

Poppy Skelton - North East

Newcastle University

Tell us a story about yourself or someone else that made you get involved with human rights and social justice.

Like many of us, learning about the Climate Crisis whilst growing up was infuriating and an issue that felt like I couldn't just sit around and wait for someone else to solve. I refuse to accept that a wealthy minority will dictate a system that has the potential to jeopardise the safety and sanctuary for the people of our planet - particularly those who have contributed the least to the issue! I'm a student of History and I focus my studies on the history human injustices and how activism has brought about positive change to create a more equal and happier world for all - I do this to help keep motivated and inspired. I very much believe in the power of the individual and even more so in the power of all of us working together to make the world we live in safer and happier for everyone.

Raina Singh - South West

University of Exeter

Tell us a story about yourself or someone else that made you get involved with human rights and social justice.

At the age of 13, my mother and I returned to the UK, when I was faced with the sudden passing of my father. We had to quickly adapt to a new country with no family. I remember soon after my mother had injured her back during the Christmas break, and had to be taken to A&E. I accompanied my mother in the ambulance and we remained in A&E, my mother on the trolley and I sitting by her side, left unattended to for the entire night. It was only the next morning that a doctor came and sent my mother back home without any treatment or examination done. This spurred my interest and made me get involved in human rights and social justice through my University’s Amnesty International Society. I strongly believe in equality for all regardless of race, religion, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or any other personal characteristic.

Rebecca Tyler - North West

University of Liverpool

Tell us a story about yourself or someone else that made you get involved with human rights and social justice.

Being from a BAME community I have always understood social injustice, from experiencing daily microagressions and learning about the racial discrimination my grandparents faced during the Windrush generation, I have always been extremely passionate about wanting to stamp out any form of inequality in society.

Simran Kapoor - Midlands

London School of Economics 

Tell us a story about yourself or someone else that made you get involved with human rights and social justice.

I visited Delhi, India on a family holiday. I was incredibly distressed at the sight of homeless people, in dire physical conditions, scrambling for food. Of course I see homelessness in London, but the widespread levels of poverty in India are far more noticeable and many of whom have been forgotten about due to caste, gender or age. Under COVID-19, the disparities between the rich and poor in India has been even more obvious. I have close family living in India under such circumstances. After contracting the virus, they were unable to get medical attention. People lying on hospital floors, people being too scared to leave their house. Without the wealth to pay for medical care, my family were left to their own means, as a majority of India’s population are. Such stories within my own family encourage me to get involved with human rights and social justice.