Humans of York: Alice
“The University of York is a really significant cultural presence in the city of York and I’m sure it will remain relevant to the project.”
“My experience with being an active member of the community started in 2019 when I volunteered to be one the of the student reps for my pathway. My work is on women who design and build their own tiny houses, so I was assigned to the pathway of ‘City Environment and Livability’.
“I had a really fantastic time doing that because the White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership (WRDTP) are really interested in what we have to say and are keen to support us in the things that we think could enrich the university experience.
“As part of this, myself and some of the other student reps from different pathways joined together to make the WRDTP’s first ever women in academia group.
"We were supported through the University to put on the first ever women in academia full day conference and workshop about institutional sexism and trans experiences. I’ve been very lucky to have a closely engaged experience.
“I am very lucky to be one of the recipients of the Economic and Social Research Council’s, ‘one plus three’ scholarship, which provides funding for a Masters and PhD.
"The first part was a Masters in social research methods. It was fantastic preparation for the thesis that was to come.
“Now, I’m at the final moments of the PhD part of the scholarship and I’m due to submit in November of this year.
“Through the University, I became connected to some people in the city of York who were also doing activism work.
"My PhD supervisor introduced me to the person who would go on to become my co-founder and fellow director of 'OpHouse'.
“This is a community benefit society which is renovating a decommissioned care home into 16/17 units of radically affordable housing, which will be run and managed by the housing co-op.
“We applied for the Social Enterprise and Social Science prize which was an initiative to foster strategic partnerships between academia and activism which was perfect for us. We used the funding to film a series of mini documentaries about people who were living in York and housing insecurity."
Alice, PhD candidate, Humans of York, June 2023