University College Cork Students’ Union (UCCSU) has launched a food bank as part of its student hardship fund to help students in financial difficulty.
UCCSU is seeking to address the issue of student poverty in a “tangible manner”, in the wake of reports showing an estimated 36 per cent of students in Ireland are currently experiencing “severe financial problems”.
In an email statement to The University Times, UCCSU Welfare Officer Naoise Crowley said that there is “a considerable stigma surrounding financial hardship which prevents people from speaking about it, and in some cases, seeking help”.
“We want to do our best to tackle this crisis by taking innovative and practical steps to support our students struggling with the cost of attending college”, he wrote. “Welfare issues are very often interconnected and there is a long-established link between financial hardship and mental health difficulties.”
Crowley added: “By ensuring the basic needs of students are met we hope this will have a positive knock-on effect on the mental health of students we support through this initiative.”
He said the cost of living in Cork has risen considerably in recent years, with rent prices increasing by 7.1 per cent last year.
“However”, he continued, “grant amounts and thresholds have not changed since the austerity budgets of the coalition government following the recession. In essence, support options have not moved in line with this increased cost of attending university”.
“Students’ Unions across the island have responded to this situation by putting pressure on politicians and policymakers to make education more accessible, and we are continuing with such efforts. At the same time, we want to do our best to tackle this crisis by taking innovative and practical steps to support our students struggling with the cost of attending college.”
He said the new food bank “allows us to respond directly and in a tangible manner to one of the most common areas students come to us for assistance”.
Last month a group in UCC planning to give out drug testing kits to students were refused permission to do so by the college’s authorities.
EchoLive.ie reported that UCC Students for Sensible Drug Policy Society, which lobbies for harm-reduction measures around drug usage, had planned to provide students with single-use test kits this week.
In a Facebook post, the group said: “Due to things out of our control, we are not permitted to run the Drug Test Kit Handout events anymore.”
“We are so sorry to those who were hoping to come along and receive vital harm reduction information and a test kit with an explanation of its limitations and how to use it”, the post said. “The University will not let us hand them out until the HSE approves of them.”
