COVID-19 and Financial Support

COVID-19 pandemic is one of the unpredictable situations that no one could have prepared for. To our students, this pandemic hasn’t just affected their academic and social experience, it has also impacted on the finances and their sources of funding. As a Students’ Union, supporting your academically and social wasn’t enough for us and hence went a step further to fight for the following financial support for our students:

Hardship Fund

The University already had in existence Student Living cost support Fund to debt funding for students who were facing critical financial issues that could lead to their deprivation of freedom, eviction from home, etc. However, the scope of this fund excluded various forms of financial hardship that COVID_19 could bring. Also, the application process had an extra layer of scrutiny on international students which we found unfair. So, we negotiated for the fund to extend to other types of hardships that COVID19 could bring and also ensured that all the extra layer of scrutiny placed on international students were removed. We also ensured that an application process guide was developed to give context explanation of all the fields for students while applying. Application link (https://bit.ly/UoMHardshipFund) Application Guide (https://bit.ly/FundApplicationGuide)

Movement of Student Staff unto Government Furlough Scheme

Some of our students were working in our building across both our commercial outlets as well as the offices. However, the closure of these student's union building meant that student staff who were working part-time were unable to receive the shifts they would have normally had. We established the Students’ Union Hardship Fund immediately to ensure that student staff who were facing financial hardship after the closure of our building was supported. But when the Government launched its Furlough Scheme to support corporations in maintaining their staff, we successfully migrated 223 student staff to ensure that though they were at home, they still received the government salary support through the furlough scheme. The Furlough scheme ensures that the government pays a cash grant of 80% of the average monthly wage received for the past 12 months, until June 2020 (https://bit.ly/FurloughScheme).

Releasing students from Rent Obligations

For the safety of some of our students, the outbreak of COVID19 in the United Kingdom left immediately back to their various countries. This initially meant that they were still going to honour their rent obligations. We negotiated with the university and gain their commitment to relieving students who have left their accommodations from their rent obligations, hence not paying their rent from 21st March onwards till they return to their various accommodation (https://bit.ly/COVID_19FAQs). 

To students living outside of university accommodation, the university and the unions within Greater Manchester have written to statement encouraging all non-campus accommodation service providers to release students of their financial obligations towards their rent, especially for those who have left their accommodation due to COVID19 (Link - https://bit.ly/PetitionToLanlords).

What else are we working on to protect students’ financial health?

At the moment, we are working with the university around some components of the students’ tuition fees which the union believes need to be refunded. Some of these are costs of international field trips that were embedded in the tuition fees yet never happened due to COVID19. 

We have also issued a petition to the Government encouraging them to assist the university(s) in providing financial compensations to both home and international students as we believe that the second semester of the 2019/20 academic year has been heavily disrupted by Strikes and this current COVID19 pandemic (https://bit.ly/UMSUPetition4Refund).

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