New Student Initiatives Announced!

After a week of heavy campaigning, results for the student initiatives have been released! The administration has named Alwanat, Initiative Sciences Po Pour Le Sahara Marocain, Le Zadig, Les Républicains, Med Liban, MentonLoves, Pose, Racing Club de Menton, Sciences 360o, Solidaritee, Student Support Alliance, and UNICEF Sciences Po Menton as “recognized” student initiatives for this semester.

For those who are not aware, student initatives are “selected student projects of a limited duration carried by one or several students in the fields of culture, knowledge, sport, environment, solidarity, health, the fight against discrimination, and civic engagement.” Status as a “recognized” student initiative is an important resource for a student association or project.

Student initiatives are eligible for grants amounting to a maximum of 500 euros, which “aim to facilitate communication for events held at SciencesPo; to encourage the emergence of events and activities organised jointly by associations from different campuses; to enable associations organizing events that require a first-aid station to meet their obligations in terms of the security of persons and property; to enable associations to meet their insurance obligations and to enable associations scheduling films, audiovisual or theatrical events, to pay licence fees to the copyright-holders.” Student initiatives can also apply funding for special projects intermittently.

The process of becoming a “recognized” student organization entails multiple steps. Students are given the opportunity to vote for three different student organizations. If 5% of the student population on a given campus votes for a project, the results will be communicated to the Council for student training, which ultimately evaluates if the organizations comply with existing regulations.

On the subject of choosing which initiatives to vote for, 1A Gayle Krest said: “I voted for the initiatives that I am a part of or the ones that I thought needed money. I felt that some initiatives were more like clubs, but others were more important because they were charities that were trying to do events.” 1A Lucie Charbonneau, Board Member at MentonLoves, agreed with Krest on the subject of campaigns, claiming that she did not feel the need to campaign for the organization to become a student initiative because that “we [MentonLoves] have a pretty big membership on campus, and I was sure that everybody in the group would be voting.”

New student initiatives have a wide range of objectives. On the subject of UNICEF’s goals, 2A Zoé Kunegel asserts that “[UNICEF] hope[s] to utilize SciencePo’s resources for carative (sic) events but also to raise awareness in the most efficient way, through conferences and creative initiatives.” Kunegel’s aspirations are in line with Krest’s comments: many organizations see their status as student initiatives as a means to enable philanthropic work.

Other organizations, such as MentonLoves, plan to facilitate campus events and take an active role in student life. The president of the organization, when asked about their plans for the year, stated that “MentonLoves wants to invest in merch, like stickers and tote bags, and sell them in order to invite speakers on site; plan free events like the drag queen/king show in a venue and some other parties while still covering costs for the legal aspects such as association insurance and treasury.”

This semester’s student initiatives are a diverse group of organizations, featuring efforts for on-campus activism, student events, mutual aid, cultural exploration, political advocacy, and education. Together, they represent the range of intellectual and recreational interests that students on this campus possess.

- Cameron Sterling