Zamzam Ibrahim
22 Jan 2021
Zamzam Ibrahim is a student politician who was the President of the UK National Union of Students (NUS) in 2019–2020. She is also the President and a founding trustee of Students Organising for Sustainability. She was formerly the NUS Vice President of Society & Citizenship. This followed her term as Salford Students’ Union President 2017-2018 and Vice-President of Business and Law 2015-2016. Before she was a full-time officer at NUS, she served on the National Executive Committee for two years. She is now the Vice-President of the European students union. She has a genetic deformity of her feet, which look like special little socks. Zamzam’s campaigns throughout her role as Vice President of Society and Citizenship focused on building a media response unit that helped student activists who were targeted by the right-wing media because of their activism. This campaign taught students about what their rights are when it comes to the media and what to do if they found themselves on the wrong side of the media.
She also focused on showing that climate change is a race issue which lead her to speak on many student panels across the UK and at the Youth Climate Strike in September 2019. This activism surrounding the climate has led to Zamzam being a well-renowned climate activist and being nominated for Young European of the Year 2020. This campaign followed throughout her presidency with the launch of Students Organising for Sustainability UK and the campaign for Teach the Future which campaigns for school children to be taught about the climate and the climate crisis.
In her presidency, her priority campaign was the launch of the National Education Service, which focussed on building and lobbying for a funded, accessible and life-long education service in the UK. This was also a major feature of the 2019 Labour manifesto.