The Nest

Martlet Editor-in-Chief Sydney Lobe talks with Taha Qureshi, the coordinator for the Students of Colour Collective (SOCC) about what SOCC’s role is at UVic. SOCC is a student advocacy group that serves all racialized UVic students and works to promote and support cultural diversity on campus and in the Greater Victoria community. Taha speaks to who is a part of the SOCC, how to be an ally to students of colour by showing up, and the necessity of small movements to move the dial of change forward.

Find out more about the SOCC and how to get involved here:
Instagram: @soccollective
Website: https://soccollective.com/

Transcripts for episodes of the Nest are available at martlet.ca

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What is The Nest?

The Nest is UVic’s independent newspaper the Martlet’s podcast, established in November 2024. The Nest features Martlet Editor-in-Chief Sydney Lobe interviewing UVic and greater Victoria community members about what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and how you can get involved. It is recorded CFUV 101.9FM’s studios and airs biweekly at 10:00 Saturday morning on CFUV 101.9 FM. Find out more about the Martlet and our volunteer and staff opportunities at martlet.ca.

*Birds chirping, music*

Rae Dawson: Thanks for tuning into The Nest, a podcast by the Martlet, the University of Victoria's independent newspaper. Settle in as we listen to Editor-in-Chief Sydney Lobe talk with UVic and greater Victoria community members about what they're doing, why they're doing it, and how you can get involved. The Nest is produced in the studios of 101.9 FM CFUV radio, on the unceded lands of the Lekwungen peoples and the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples, whose relationship with the land continues to this day.

*Birds chirping, music*

Sydney Lobe: Hello and welcome back to The Nest. Today, we're joined by Taha Qureshi, who is a recent graduate of the UVic writing program. He emigrated to Canada from Dubai in 2019 and has been here since. He's a non fiction writer, poet, and musician, and now the Coordinator of the Students of Colour Collective, SOCC, at UVic. Taha Qureshi, welcome to The Nest.

Taha Qureshi: Thank you for having me.

Sydney Lobe: Thank you for being here! So to start, I'm hoping you can explain — for those who've never heard of SOCC — what it is.

Taha Qureshi: Okay, so SOCC is the Students of Colour Collective. It's one of the five advocacy groups at the University of Victoria Student Society. Our work primarily revolves around creating space and resources and advocacy and community for racialized students on this campus, for self-identifying racialized students on this campus. I think our work goes beyond that a little bit also and it sometimes ends up being more like, how to show up is, I think, a big part of the work that we do. Not just for people that are not part of our collective, but also for members of our collective, how to show up, how to exist in community, how to build community, how to look out for one another in community. Our work is done through arts, through workshops, seminars, and hopefully also parties in the upcoming future.

Sydney Lobe: Lovely. So when you say part of our collective, what do you mean by that? How do you become a part of the collective?

Taha Qureshi: So, if you are a self-identifying racialized student, you're already part of our collective. It's whether or not you choose to engage with us, mostly. I think people forget, and I've been guilty of this also when I first started out here, of the self-identifying part, because not everyone identifies with SOCC in the same capacity, like some people are not readily– just the terminology itself– like, okay, let's break this down. BIPOC itself is not a term anywhere else in the world, except for the West. Within that it's Black and Indigenous people of colour. Now obviously Black and Indigenous, the reason the B and the I exist there, it makes sense that they are there because they have faced discrimination and inequalities on just a very large scale that at least people know about in the West or in Canada. POC, however, generalizes and groups together a lot of people, and oftentimes what that does is it gets students wondering, and just people wondering I guess, that their skin tone and the pigmentation of their skin is what determines whether or not they are a student of colour. I personally see it more as “student of culture,” because I'm like, people have culture, and you can have whatever shade of skin and still be of a culture and of an ethnic group.

So that's sort of been part of the work we've done this year is to sort of expand what SOCC actually stands for. And we're trying to move away from using “BIPOC” and using “self-identifying racialized students” more, because I find that people identify with that quicker. A lot of the students that we serve are international students. They don't– like, in my own experience, I didn't know what BIPOC was until, like, my second or third year, and I was like, “Hey, wait, they're talking about me.” I didn't know that was a thing, because there is no need for the term in other places off the world. So yeah, I think it comes to that: If you self-identify with a cultural group or an ethnic group, whether or not you're international, SOCC has room for you.

Sydney Lobe: That's a great answer, thank you. I'm curious when you say you're already a part of SOCC — a part of the collective — if you self-identify as being a racialized student, it's just whether or not you engage with us. What does it look like to engage with SOCC? I mean, I know you are in the SUB, you have a space, you have a lounge. What does it look like to show up at the lounge and be curious about becoming engaged?

Taha Qureshi: Yeah, so we've got a bunch of programs that we run. These programs are, again, some of them are arts-based, some of them are education-based, some of them are leisure-based. Those are, I think, the three avenues that we really try to focus on. Showing up — literally just that. If you're using the lounge, you're engaged. If you're only coming to us when you're at a meeting, you're engaged. If you knock on my door and you're like, “Hey, that thing fell down,” you're engaged. Like, as long as you are existing in the space, walking around meeting people in this space, yeah, you're engaged. It really is that initiative of like, hey, this feels like there's a community here that I could benefit from. I want to be a part of this community. There's no such thing as too many people for it.

And we've been trying to create newer ways to get people engaged. Something that's really worked this year is our Equitable Outdoors campaign, which was started and the brain baby of our Outreach Officer, Lakshyata. It was a way to get more members of our communities out into just the outdoors and doing outdoors activities. It can feel like a very white-dominated space, but the outdoors is everywhere, so that's like a really big space to feel like it's just designated to one group of people. So we've been trying to get more of our students out– We did a hike. So far this year we've done a hike, a bird walk and a canoeing trip, and all three have been super successful.

And then when they are successful, and you meet people, you make a friend or something, and you never show up to another one of our events or meetings, but you keep that friend, you're engaged. Like, that's the purpose. That's why we're doing it. It's not, show up to our meetings, it's not vote– Well, okay, if you show up to more than two meetings, you have the ability to vote, but if you don't, then you can't vote. But other than that, yeah, those metrics aren't what we're using to measure success. Yeah, the lounge this year also, like our lounge was– SOCC history is just the fact that we used to be the most underfunded advocacy group on this campus. We're still the least funded, but we have more money now because we ran a referendum question last year and the student body voted on a budget increase, and we used that budget increase to revamp our lounge space so that it could feel like an accessible third space on this campus.

Sydney Lobe: I’m also hoping you can talk me through a little bit more of the admin structure of the organization. Are you mostly volunteer run? Do you have a staff? I mean, I know you are staff, but what does that look like?

Taha Qureshi: So, big decisions are made by the collective. I am staff, I'm the coordinator, which basically just means I'm the guy in the chair. That's just it, like, I'm the one who sits in the office behind the desk and gets everything aligned for there to be events, for there to be programming. But we have a bigger team than that. We have one student staff position, which is our outreach officer. We've got two work study positions. One of them is an education coordinator who is currently being onboarded, and we are on the search for– or I guess by the time this episode comes out, we have a showcase curator, which is our next work study position, we've got an artist in residence who is creating arts based programming during their residency at SOCC, and their residency is two semesters long. And then we have volunteers who are also in designated positions like outreach rep, board rep. Representative positions are there also.

Sydney Lobe: Gotcha, and I was also hoping you could talk a little bit about the role that SOCC plays in the university community, in terms of, is there anything else like it? Because I know SOCC is a part of the UVSS, which is independent from UVic as an institution, but we're on UVic campus in the Student Union Building, and you serve UVic students. Are there similar or comparable groups, organizations, or resources at UVic?

Taha Qureshi: I would say yes, and no, I would say yes, there are similar if you're just looking for community. I think there are a lot of places you can go to find community depending on the kind of community you're looking for or where you're finding acceptance. There's a bunch of clubs. You've got the African Caribbean Students Association, you've got the Muslim Students Association. You've got UVic Philippine. You've got– there's an organization, there's a club that does like cultural dinners every month. So there are a lot of other spaces that you can go to like access community. Advocacy? I am not entirely sure. And I think I say that as someone who has been a student on this campus for the past five years. I didn't know SOCC existed till my third year, fourth year– third year at UVic. And historically, it's been, it's not been as alive. Like it's been alive, but it's been really hard to make it have presence and exist on this campus in a way that, like, people know it's there. That yeah, there is an organization on this campus called SOCC, this is what they're doing. That's been a challenge. So I would say yes, there are other places you could go, but no, because no one's doing what we're doing.

Sydney Lobe: Right. I'm glad you mentioned advocacy because I really appreciate what you were talking about earlier, about being a place where people can find community, people can find a friend. But what does it mean to be an advocacy group? What does it mean for you to advocate for students who are a part of your collective?

Taha Qureshi: Yeah, I don't know if you know this about the UVic campus: It's really white.

Sydney Lobe: [laughter] I do. I've noticed, yeah.

Taha Qureshi: And I don't think it's white because there are no racialized students on this campus. I think it feels a lot whiter than it is, because there isn't enough tangible space for us to exist at the same time on this campus. And I'm not saying that to like, point blame at anyone. I'm not doing that at all. I think that's where it starts, because there are so many of us on this campus. UVic has also, like a lot of universities in Canada, have been accepting and taking in lots of international students who pay a lot of international tuition. And that's something that's going to change, because there's, like, nationwide laws now, immigration laws now in place that are restricting how many international students a university can accept. So how many of us end up on this campus is also going to change in the upcoming few years, and when I think about advocacy, I think about creating that space. Why I think SOCC as part of the student society is important and what advocacy means to SOCC in that way– the UVSS is the student's voice, and I think SOCC is the racialized student's voice within the advocacy– like within the UVSS. Our work is focused on making this campus just more diverse, just like more celebration of the fact that it's already so diverse. I find that our communities usually end up leaving campus to try and find community, and that exists for the city of Victoria to some extent and some degree, but it doesn't exist that much on this campus, I think. And that's a change that we're hoping to start with.

Sydney Lobe: And you talked a little bit about this before, but what does success look like for SOCC?

Taha Qureshi: So I came on board as coordinator in the summer. I was outreach officer all of last year, I was the coordinator interim for a little bit in January of this year, and now I'm back. And over the summer, there were two main projects that we were working on, and I was working in an interim capacity because I didn't know if I was going to stick around or not. And the two projects that we picked up were the communal pantry and the lounge revamp. Those were just the two things we were doing over the summer. And as it came together, and the pantry was ready and the lounge was ready, and everything looked cute and cozy and like, welcoming. I was– just stood there– This August, I finished courses, like, I was done being a student at UVic, so I kind of stood there in that lounge, and I looked around, and I was like, “Okay, I see a friend group forming in here.”

Like, that's genuinely– I have had so many friend groups over the past six years of being on this campus. However, none of them were formed in the SOCC room, like all of it happened outside, outside campus, off of campus, somewhere else. Very rarely on campus, unless you count first year [laugher], but I don't count friends I made during res. Earlier this year, I was in the lounge warming up my food because we have a sexy red microwave in there. Yeah, I love that microwave.

Sydney Lobe: You sold me.

Taha Qureshi: Yep, it's great. It has like a retro design too, it kind of looks vintage. It's not, but it's great. I love it. This is how I know I've become an adult, because a microwave excites me like this.

Sydney Lobe: And now, if you have an influx of students coming to use your sexy red microwave- you know you have to expect that now. [laughter]

Taha Qureshi: Yeah guys, come use the red microwave! I was warming up the food, and there was a group of students sat in the lounge. They were planning friendsgiving, and I could tell that they were all international students, because they all just looked like they were international students from different– like international from different parts of the world. And I thought back to my first friendsgiving because I can't fly home to Dubai for a three day break, plus the weekend. I would spend two days in the air. That's not something that's possible for a lot of students on this campus. And so yeah, just like watching or like listening in a little bit — I left before it went into creepy territory — but just like hearing the fact that there was a group of students using the lounge as the space where they decided to come sit down have lunch and plan this friendsgiving thing. Having been so close to experiencing– feeling like I had, through the work that I was doing, created a space for more of that experience to be formed, that was success to me. I was like, that's a win. And honestly, like more– At the end of every event, that's just what measures the success of the event. It's never the number. It’s the feeling, right?

Sydney Lobe: Like you said, if somebody's walking away with a friend.

Taha Qureshi: Yeah, it's nice to have a friend.

Sydney Lobe: It is nice to have a friend!

Taha Qureshi: [Whispering] Taylor Swift reference.

Sydney Lobe: So, I'm curious what allyship can look like at SOCC, or with SOCC, especially, like you mentioned, in a university that has a large white population, or that is very white?

Taha Qureshi: I think that's an interesting question, I think it has a lot of layers to it. And it can look different for everyone, like everyone can consider it like as a whole other thing. For me personally, allyship also is primarily just showing up. Showing up, listening, realizing when even though there might be a similarity, it doesn't necessarily mean it's the same. I think allyship also is something that needs to be taught and learnt. An initiative is needed to learn how to become a better ally and how to show up as an ally, especially when the communities you're showing up for, they might not necessarily have anything to do with you. Like it's so easy to just be like, oh, disconnect. It can be very easy to think a struggle is not yours, so why would you insert yourself? Or to get, like, afraid that you may mess up, and so not showing up at all. Like, those are all very valid fears, but if you don't show up with the intention to learn, you're not going to learn.

And that's not just a call to like white people, it is a call to, like, every single person. If you live on this earth, there's a very high chance that your community exists around other communities. How do you show up for all of those communities? Last year, I mentioned this earlier, SOCC hasn't had money in like the longest time, least funded advo group. Last year, when I was outreach officer, we were running a referenda to get the student body to vote on a budget increase for SOCC, and I was tabling with volunteers, co-workers, and I found that we were not talking to the white kids. And I was just like, guys, I don't think we're getting this budget increase if we don't go talk to them, because if we don't teach them how to show up, they're just not going to show up, and then we can't get pissed that they didn't show up. So, I don't want to say targeted, but I targeted the white students because I was like, “Hey, do you want to know how you can actually show up?” And they were like, “Yeah, how?” I'm like, vote yes for the increase in our budget. We have no money. We don't– We can't do any programming. We can't meet the needs of our communities and the students that are in our collective properly, because we don't have money.

This year with more funding, we've– That pantry has been stocked every month of this semester so far, and will continue to be stocked because we have the budget for it. And that pantry is not like a– It's not something you can like, access all the time, in the sense of like, it's more so for like, emergency purposes, slash, like, “Oh, I'm on campus. I just need a snack,” kind of thing. Using the lounge, sure, go ahead. No one's specifically monitoring or policing the pantry at all. But our ability to be able to offer that to our collective members comes from the allyship that was shown earlier this year, when historically, and I think you might have to check this, but, highest voter turnout last year for UVSS like elections. I don't– but highest voter turnout plus SOCC, we got the budget increase? That's allyship.

Allyship can exist in so many more ways, and can be tenfold. And sometimes even members of our collective and members of minority groups also need to learn how to be allies. It's an– Allyship is not just about cultures and races. It's also about intersectionality in general, and people can live on multiple intersections. How do you show up for them? And showing up for them might look different from showing up for someone who doesn't live at multiple intersections, but that's also allyship. I am of the belief that individually, it is nobody's responsibility to educate anyone on how to be an ally. But we exist on a campus. We are a collective on a campus, and if we're not educating then, yeah, it sometimes feels counterintuitive when we're upset that we didn't see allyship. You don't know how allyship works. And sometimes we just have to do the work of educating the people around us so that they know how to better show up for their community, for the communities that surround their communities. Yeah. And take that more– I think it's more in our forefront this year of being like, how do we– How do we do this educational work at the same time also?

Sydney Lobe: Yeah, and that it can be as simple as, like you mentioned, your community exists around other communities. How do you recognize that as you are alive?

Taha Qureshi: Literally.

Sydney Lobe: I mean, it's something that we hear a lot. I think a lot of people probably would be surprised to hear that it's that simple, yeah.

Taha Qureshi: And it's, it is that simple. It's not always that simple. Either it can be as simple as that, but it can also be difficult. And I think that's where personal intention really counts. Of like, if you're showing up, how do you show up? Like you can– Google is free. Google is free, and we live in the era of ChatGPT, but libraries are also free. Books exist. Read beyond the page. Try to engage with what you're reading, even if you're just staring at a screen. Engage with what you're seeing. Ask questions. Please, ask questions! I think one of the biggest pitfalls is people being too afraid to ask questions, because then, when you don't get answers, you try to make meaning yourself, and you can reach so many conclusions when you do that, it's not always– not the right, but not the best one either. The conclusion, yeah.

Sydney Lobe: Yeah, I think that was an important distinction. It can be that simple. It's not always, but it can be in the case of, for example, voting, showing up to vote. You know, just considering the fact that there are other people here, how can I show that I'm on their side? In a very small way, but what ended up being a very meaningful way, because you were able to get the pantry project off the ground, and that's huge.

Taha Qureshi: A lot of the work that we're doing this year, we wouldn't be able to, like, do, and on the scale that we're doing it at, if we didn't get that budget increase last year. I think it really made a big difference. And I've seen people who are not part of our collective point potential collective members in our direction also, which is also great, that's also allyship.

Sydney Lobe: That's the point.

Taha Qureshi: Hey, this does not apply to me, but this is you. You should see this, like, yeah, this could be something you could do. This could be something you go to.

Sydney Lobe: Yeah. Which, like you mentioned, that's the whole reason why you're there.

Taha Qureshi: Create this big web of love!

Sydney Lobe: That's great. Isn't that what we're all trying to do?

Taha Qureshi: We're trying.

Sydney Lobe: I love so much hearing about SOCC and all the wonderful things that you've been able to do. But I'm curious about you. And now that you're so immersed in your work– You started as outreach officer, right? And now you’re coordinator. What work-–What meaning does the work have for you personally?

Taha Qureshi: Honestly, I just don't want anyone going through what I went through. And I don't think I, like, went through it. I did go through it, but I think everyone goes through it at university, it's kind of like a prerequisite to, like, graduating, like you got to go through it a little bit. My experience has just been crazy these past five years on this campus. I genuinely– immigrating here all the way from Dubai, did not know what I was getting myself into at all. All I saw growing up was Mr. Trudeau coming up on Twitter and being like, Ramadan Mubarak to all my Muslim Canadians, or Eid Mubarak to all my Muslim Canadians. And my mom was like, “Yeah, that one. This is a good one. We like that one.” My first week in Canada, his black- and brown-face photos got leaked. First week, I was in a journalism class. It was a thing. It was a whole thing.

Sydney Lobe: Well, yeah! I remember.

Taha Qureshi: And I was like, “Wait, what's going on?” My orientation here, I heard Dr. Skip Dick speak at this international students orientation, heard about Indigenous communities, heard “W̱SÁNEĆ” for the first time, heard “Songhees” for the first time, heard the word “Lekwungen” for the first time. And I was like, “What is going on? Where am I?” It was a big question mark to me and then I kind of realized I have to do the work to figure out where I am right now, because I need to as an ally. That's a responsibility I should take on, because if I am here, am I causing harm by being here when that's not my intention? And like, I'm here for, like, a whole other subset of reasons? It was just a lot more learning that I– than I thought I was coming here to do. But I'm very, very glad that I was on a campus where, through the diversity that exists on this campus, I was able to learn from communities that were not my own, and like, listen to people and talk to people and converse.

But I also went through a lot of isolation in my first year of university. My res friends were all white, and I went to the white kids because I was like, “You guys get what my queerness is.” And I ran from, like, all of the students of colour, because I was like, “Y'all don't get it.” Like, that's why I left, right? Like, that's the whole thing. But then COVID hit, and I was one of the last maybe five or six students on this campus when everyone else got to go home. And UVic doesn't shut down on time, like, ever, so the borders closed before I could plan to go home, and I ended up in Victoria, staying here. I didn't know anyone, all my friends, like I was working while they were complaining about having to go on another walk with their parents. And I was like, I'd do anything to go on a walk with my parents right now.

Sydney Lobe: Yeah, no kidding.

Taha Qureshi: That's so weird, I'm flipping Blizzards, you're baking bread. We're not the same. It's not the same. And it was only when– in Fall of 2021? Summer 2021, when the world started to open up again a little bit, and we came back to campus, even with restrictions and everything that I found my footing, found groups of people that- I mean, I wasn't really becoming friends with anyone because they were a certain colour or from a certain place or a certain race. I was just like, I'm free flying, if you're attracted, come hang out. Like, if you're– don't like my vibe, goodbye. And the vibes checked out. But I did expand my own thinking, because I came here with such, like, a different sense of just like being. I've had profs say out of pocket shit to me. I've had– I've had staff at this university say out of pocket shit to me. I once got asked if my suitcase had a bomb in it, and then I worked for the organization where the person who asked me worked. There's a lot that has happened and that I have learned in the past five years, six years of being a student and now an employee on this campus. And to be honest, as I was wrapping up my interim position at the end of summer and I was wrapping up my degree, I was like, I don't want to be here. So when I got the job offer, yes, everything, all the positives aside, I was like, do I want to stay on this campus? And then I thought back to me as a twelfth grader interviewing for the head boy position at my school. If you don't know what head boy is, head boy is student body president in the British curriculum school system set up. We wear blazers and ties.

Sydney Lobe: And that’s the big difference!

Taha Qureshi: That’s the big difference. I got asked why I wanted to do it, and I said, “I just want to be the voice I wish I had.” Constantly, consistently, that's all I've wanted to do. And obviously, when I said that as a twelfth grader, I was– there were queer undertones there. I was talking about it from a whole other perspective because I was like, I know that there are younger students here that look to me. I wasn't out, but, like, closet was glass, so it was like, it was very obvious. And I was like, me as a head boy would send a very strong message to a lot of kids, and I think right now, at the end of my degree, I was just being asked the same question again. I was just like, well!

Sydney Lobe: Here I am again.

Taha Qureshi: Here I am again. Maybe I can– I don't know how long I will be here, but I do know that in the time that I'm here, I could leave something behind that can then be built on further. And in the words of Taylor Swift, that's a great fucking legacy to leave.

Sydney Lobe: I think it's really powerful. I mean, of course, like you mentioned, you went through a lot. You had a really tumultuous time at UVic. And so there's, I'm hearing, you know, maybe there's a little bit of an internal debate with kind of, self preservation on one side. And then what you're saying now, this desire to be something for people that you wish had existed for you. And I mean, I hope both things can co-exist. I hope you're at peace now being here, but I think it's really beautiful that you're doing that, and it's clearly making a difference for the people who are part of your collective now.

Taha Qureshi: Thank you for saying that. I hope it is, I've held many roles. I was a community leader for a little while also, and the thing that sticks out to me the most personally, is that they, like my residents from when I was a CL still come to see me and they want to, like, give me updates about their life. They want to tell me how they're doing, what job they're working, all of these things, and all I did in that position, really, was build community. And this, working at the student society doesn't feel far from being head boy. But now I'm just like, I am head boy yet again, this does feel like student council work, but I get paid for it, and hopefully I can create something that stays here longer than I will. I don't just mean like– I mean also, like, metaphysically, hopefully. We shall see.

Sydney Lobe: It's– I was going to say, maybe a little bit full circle for you, but maybe it's an emerging theme, and there will be many, many times when you're head boy again in various capacities throughout your life.

Taha Qureshi: [laughter] Don’t say that! Don’t prophesize that!

Sydney Lobe: [laughter] Okay, I take it back.

Taha Qureshi: I can’t be head boy again.

Sydney Lobe: Okay, this is your final–

Taha Qureshi: I hope to still be visible. That's just it. I take that very seriously in my role as coordinator, also, because I don't think I had a visible, capital “A” adult who, like, knew what the fuck was going on.

Sydney Lobe: During your time at UVic, you mean?

Taha Qureshi: Yeah, and I feel like the opportunity to become that is just, like, what has like, opened up– and you're not wrong. This has happened multiple times in my life. When I came out for the first time, and, like, was publicly out and queer, I had people from all over the world reaching out to me, being like, thanks. And I'm like, “I was just trying to post a sexy picture on my ‘gram like, what do you mean thanks?” And they're like, “No, if you're doing it, then maybe one day we can too.” And I'm just like, that's– It's a crazy responsibility. But every time it has come my way, I think I've tried to just, like, carry it with gratitude and intention and consideration for more than just myself. Hence collective.

Sydney Lobe: Hence collective. That's beautiful. I want to talk, finally, a little bit about something we kind of already touched on. You were saying you have so little funding at SOCC, I know a lot of advo groups, a lot of student organizations feel unsupported. I don't know– I don't mean to be prescriptive. Maybe that's not accurate to your experience working at SOCC, but it's something I've certainly heard a lot just being a part of the university community. And I mean, if that resonates, I wonder what it would look like for you to feel fully supported in your work. Well, I guess first of all, does that resonate for you?

Taha Qureshi: I think to some extent, yeah, I think we are a Student Society. We are the students voice. But as I was saying before we started speaking today, I had to remind myself that I'm here not a student, not anymore. I work for an organization, and I think if there is a level of support that sometimes feels missed, it's the bureaucracy of it all.

I don't really have a fix for it. I don't have an answer for it. I don't know what it could look like, but yeah, that's just, that's what I can say about it. Like, at the end of the day, both the University and the UVSS, as helpful, resourceful, and important as they are, are both businesses. It just goes to– Like, shout out to literally all the other coordinators, all the other student staff members, all the other food staff members, all of these community members who exist on this campus, and choose to wake up and come work within the system to try and break it. It is not easy to do, and it's a fight that's bigger than us. It really is, just like pushing the needle just a little further day by day. Yeah, I've– As someone who's been here for the last six years, I'm like, okay, now I'm here six years later on my personal thing, and a lot of the things that we're doing at SOCC and things that we have upcoming for the next semester are, are first time things that are happening at SOCC.

And I think sometimes we can feel very small in like, the grand scheme of things, like the bigger grand scheme of things, but it's very important for us to be small right now. For that big change to show up when it shows up, and slowly cultivate it towards like, mutual liberation. For me, coming into this role this year, I thought to myself that everyone wants to save the world. There's this quote that someone said to me, they were like, “Everyone wants to save the world, no one wants to wash the dishes.” And I came into this role thinking that there are racialized students on this campus with dirty plates, and someone needs to wash dishes so they can eat. And that's, that's how I'm pushing the needle forward. People can complain about it, and people can think like, oh, that's not enough. But that's where I'm at with it. To close off this answer, to specific– the last part of your question about, like, what that would look like to have full support, I can't tell you. I've never had it. If I ever do, I'll circle back for sure, but I think my imagination only stretches so wide before the reality of the world kicks in. And then I'm like hmm, because any perfect world with any type of full support will still– there will still be something. Of course, there always is, there's always another shoe.

Sydney Lobe: And I know that was a loaded question, too. But I think it's powerful what you said, that it's important to be small. If you're feeling that your contribution is small, or that right now you're small, it's still important to be that. It's a contribution, it's a dish.

Taha Qureshi: It is. It’s a dish. Think of it as being fun-sized, not small.

Sydney Lobe: [laughter] That’s right.

Taha Qureshi: This is how I get through being quote-unquote, five-seven on a good day. [laughter] No one believes me!

Sydney Lobe: That’s your motto.

Taha Qureshi: That is– It literally is.

Sydney Lobe: So, to close off our lovely conversation I would love to ask you to talk a little bit about how people can get involved with SOCC now, today, should they want to?

Taha Qureshi: If you want to get involved with SOCC, we are planning and putting together a massive cultural exhibition in February on the sixth and the seventh. There's a sign up form for it on SOCC’s Instagram, and that's @SOCCollective, it's in our little Linktree. You can also go to the UVSS Instagram bio, and there is a sign up form there. We're very slowly announcing things, but UVic has not had a cultural celebration of this sort. I know this building [the SUB] has not had one. There's a bunch of moving parts to it. If you want to get involved with that, like that's a great place to start. The Students of Colour Collective is located in the Student Union Building. We're on the first floor, just across from Munchie Bar, B120 and B122. B120 is my office, so if you want to come chat, come chat with me. It'll sound like this conversation, where I talk a lot, or you can swing by the lounge– that's SUB B122.

Sydney Lobe: Amazing, thank you. I appreciate it, and thank you so much for taking the time to come and chat with me today and talk about SOCC and all of the amazing work you've been doing!

Taha Qureshi: Of course, thank you for having me.

Sydney Lobe: I really appreciate it. That was Taha Qureshi, Coordinator of SOCC, the Students of Colour Collective, here at UVic. We spoke about the importance of community building to the work that SOCC is doing, how to be an ally, and Taha’s journey to becoming the voice he once wished existed on campus. Our next issue of the Martlet comes out in print and online on December 12, and we hope to see you at the pub box!

*Birds chirping, music*

Rae Dawson: Thanks for tuning into The Nest, a podcast by UVic’s independent newspaper, the Martlet. You can read the latest edition of the Martlet’s publication on martlet.ca or find us on X, TikTok and LinkedIn as @theMartlet. Interested in getting involved? Email edit@martlet.ca to learn more about volunteer writer, editor and design positions.

*Birds chirping*

Sydney Lobe: And now a note from the Martlet fact-checking team: At eight minutes and fifteen seconds, Taha says, “SOCC history is just the fact that we used to be the most underfunded advocacy group on this campus.” The Martlet could not verify this fact.

At nine minutes and twenty-five seconds, Taha says, “We've got two work study positions. One of them is an education coordinator who is currently being onboarded, and we are on the search for– or I guess by the time this episode comes out, we have a showcase curator, which is our next work study position.” The Martlet could not verify this fact.

At ten minutes and fifty-eight seconds, Taha says, “You've got the African Caribbean Students Association, you've got the Muslim Students Association. You've got UVic Philippine.” The accurate names of these clubs are the African and Caribbean Students Association and UVic Philippine Community.

At twenty-one minutes and fifty-one seconds, Taha says that there was the “highest voter turnout last year for UVSS like elections.” The UVSS’s highest voter turnout was in the calendar year of 2024.

At thirty-two minutes and thirty-two seconds, Taha says, “And in the words of Taylor Swift, that's a great fucking legacy to leave.” The accurate lyrics are, “That’s a real fucking legacy to leave.”

At forty minutes and fifty-eight seconds, Taha says, “UVic has not had a cultural celebration of this sort. I know this building [the SUB] has not had one.” The Martlet could not verify this fact.

*Birds chirping*