EGEA Individual Student 2023

Individuals and teams across the University have been honoured in this year’s Excellence in Gender Equality award. The individual student award recognises a student that is making a positive difference within the gender equality agenda around the University.

See information about the great work of our 'Individual Student' award winner and nominees below...

Winner: Ares Osborn

Photo of Excellence in Gender Equality Individual student award winner

Nominated for being the founder and organiser of the Gender Expression Fund, that is making a significant impact to the lives of our Trans student community here at Warwick. Through the provision of up to £50 funding towards gender affirming items, this project is helping improve the wellbeing of Trans people in our student community. Funded by Warwick Innovation Fund and supported by the SU/Rainbow Taskforce, on the strength of this project, two other universities are now interested in a similar fund.

The judging panel said:

This is a really important project for trans students and clearly has a significant impact on student lives. An original idea with evidence of strong impact across Warwick and beyond with two universities picking this up as best practice. From the feedback this has clearly been appreciated by the student body who have accessed this fund and it is great to see a very inclusive approach to providing support, and recognising difference. This is making an enormous difference already and is an exceptionally innovative intervention.

Read our Internal Communications Interview with Ares here.Link opens in a new window

Commended: Jia Doshi

Nominated for being publicity Officer for UN Women UK Warwick, (Warwick’s arm of UK NFP organisation on campus), which raises the profile of women and empowers feminism within the university, Jai has proactively promoted events, activities and discussions for example highlighting International issues faced by Women in War and crisis situations. Through their role they developed Instagram and social media platforms for reaching wider students in Warwick and have promoted a campaign to raise the profile of the unheard Women of Colour’s voices in history.

The judging panel said:

We wanted to commend nominee for their work in reaching out to a wider student body via social media platforms and particularly in helping raise the profile of gender-based violence through this work, as this is an important focus for Warwick and a central part of what we are seeking to address with our Warwick principles

Certificate of Recognition:

Laila Ahmed

Nominated for a campaign to raise awareness of sexual assault and violence on campus, through a university petition that went national, an external campaign in the media, and external promotion and protests to raise awareness of sexual misconduct on campus. This resulted in national interest and the subject being mentioned in parliament. The petition opened further talks with the university and report and support to improve the living and studying environment for future students.

Chidinma Esther Kalu

Nominated by eight fellow students, Chidinma is a strong advocate for gender equality and empowering women and girls both here in Warwick and in Nigeria. As part of International Women’s Day 2023, Chidinma led a 3-day fundraising activity to raise funds to support free digital education opportunities for women and girls in Nigeria. The event helped raise awareness on campus of the gender gap in the digital sector in Africa and Nigeria, as well as raising £364.12. These funds supported a 3-month digital skills training programme for 5 Nigerian girls through the Women in IT Uyo Bootcamp, conducted by the GirlLEAD Project from April to June 2023.

Chayn S Kohli

Nominated following on from winning the EGEA2022 student award, Chayn has continued to champion gender equality here at Warwick, becoming head of Blogs and Website for the Warwick Women Careers Society, writing articles and running CV clinic in support of career opportunities for women, working with the Chemistry Dept on their ‘Designing for Inclusion’ programme, and securing an IATL funded project to drive initiatives around coding and the Shark Tank competition. They are also the co-founder of the Indian National Student Association and their podcast with Sociology and History profs was due for release in October 2023.

Tanaya Soni

Nominated for being president for UN Women UK Warwick, Warwick’s arm of UK NFP organisation on campus, which raises the profile of women and empowers feminism within the university, Tanaya has led the society to deliver events, activities and discussions to raise the profile of UN Women campaigns and gender issues on campus. They have presented at UNWOMEN National Champions Network about successful campus campaigns such as “Until We All Win” and “She Leads in Crisis”, have been a student panel member discussing intersectionality as part of the SU input into International Women’s Day.

See nominations for our other Gender Equality Award 2023 categories here.