When I began my year as UCCSU Vice President for Welfare I wrote an article for the UCC health matters Ezine where I outlined my main goal and ethos for the year: “protect our most vulnerable and support our strongest when they are at their most vulnerable, only then can we reach our potential as individuals and a society”.
Having come to the end of my tenure I have come to realise that the most important aspect of this aim was the idea of society. UCC is a community and no project or initiative can be successful without strong collaboration and community spirit.
I am delighted to say that, reviewing the year in UCC, collaboration and group effort were strong themes. Mental health was a main focus for me, having come from a background in applied psychology and having volunteered enthusiastically with organisations like the peer assisted student support programme while studying my degree. UCC’s long standing excellence in mental health promotion was acknowledged when we received the Amber Flag for mental health from Suicide Aware. Our application for this award depended on the completion of a heavy schedule of mental health related events including our mental wellbeing week, talks by local sports star Conor Cusack and the launch of campaigns against cyber bullying and the UCC Counselling services’ mind matters initiative to name but a few. The UCC mental health programme has even been applauded by the Union of Students in Ireland with nominations for their student achievement awards being bestowed on the promotion of mental wellbeing week.
Of course, none of these achievements would have come to pass without the strong collaboration between the SU, clubs, societies, services, staff and students. I was also delighted to take part in operation transformation as a leader this year.
Congratulations and thank you to everyone who took part in this steadily expanding initiative. To my fellow leaders you truly were an inspiration and a pleasure to work with. Teamwork was an integral part of this year’s Operation Transformation with more staff and students involved than ever before. Events like this showed just how much of an impact we can make on our society’s daily life when we work together.
Working together is working towards success
Dave Berry- UCC Students Union Welfare Officer