This is an adapted version of the speech delivered by Sim Dhanjal-Field at Student Hubs’ closure event on 21 November 2024.
Sim Dhanjal-Field first got involved in 2014 as a student leader at Southampton Hub, before joining the Winchester Hub staff team in 2016. Since then she has held a number of positions at the organisation including Hub Manager, Network Director, and for the past four years CEO. Sim shared her reflections on her journey with Student Hubs, and her hopes for the future as the organisation prepares to close.
We’re going to start by going all the way back to the first week of October of 2014. I had just started the third year of my undergraduate degree and I had compulsory lectures every single day. I had a friend, Sabina, who lived a little bit further away than I did and she would always walk past my house so we ended up walking to campus together.
Sabina had been at home in Romania over the summer and on these walks to campus she would tell me about all the things she’d done, an internship, volunteering – and eventually she started telling me her plans for the year ahead. Those plans involved volunteering with something called Southampton Hub, working with children in the city and a network of students across the country. I wasn’t really paying attention, I had had a challenging second year of university struggling with my mental health so I was acutely aware of the fact that this was it – I had one year left to get the most out of my experience, and to become an adult. But she started asking me questions and found out I used to coach primary school basketball – by day four she asked me to come and volunteer with the Hub and within 20 minutes she’d convinced me to join a committee meeting that afternoon.
I remember walking up the three flights of stairs to the meeting, and entering a dimly lit room full of people – there was lots of laughter, lots of chatter and in the corner there was Catherine Mitchell who was the Projects Officer getting set up. Sabina had told me I was going to have to do an interview, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that – I was worried that I was going to come up short. But as I entered the room I saw Catherine and she gave me the biggest smile I think I’ve ever seen or received in my life. Sabina introduces us and in one breath Catherine says, “Oh my gosh I’m so excited to meet you I’ve heard so much about you I can’t wait to get started we’re going to get you an email address I’m going to get you setup”. That was my first interaction with Southampton Hub and I think that sums up the welcoming, open nature that has continued through the 10 years that I have been a part of the organisation.
That year Sabina, Catherine, another volunteer – Caitlin – and I set up Branch Up which was a programme that originally ran in Oxford and that Student Hubs was trying to bring to other locations. I spent time delivering activity days, and learning a lot about what it means to be someone who participated in social action and how the charity sector works. As I got to the end of my final year I decided to do a masters and continue with Southampton Hub and Branch Up. I continued to help develop and deliver the programme and in Spring of 2016 I realised I’d spent more hours on Southampton Hub activities than I had in the research lab. It was at that point I realised that although Psychology is great I actually wanted to keep spending time with other people in the community, doing things that helped people live better lives. I think for me a lot of that came from the fact that when I was growing up I was always told “you’re from a disadvantaged part of London, you should be lucky with what you get”. It was so heartwarming, helpful, thrilling, engaging and empowering to realise through the Hub that I could help people who are like me.
After my Masters, a role came up at Winchester Hub so I applied and became the Projects Officer – as the new Catherine I got to be the person with the big smiling face that welcomed students into our doors and helped shape them. After a year I became Hub Manager, took on some national responsibilities and the next thing I knew I was the Network Director. That was a really fascinating role to me. At Winchester Hub so much of my time had been spent looking at the impact we had been creating externally with students and the local community, but when I became Network Director I realised the impact the programmes and the structure of Student Hubs had on the staff team. I realised that actually the way in which we ran the organisation and shaped our policies and our processes also supported staff to be alumni of our work, to go out and feel empowered to make change.
Then the pandemic happened and we suddenly needed a CEO to see us through that period of uncertainty. I put myself forward thinking it was going to be six months, it’s now been four years and I’m still here, guiding the organisation through its closure. This has probably been the hardest year of my life but I think the last couple of months in particular have given me time and space to reflect on the past 10 years with Student Hubs.
The thing I’m most struck by is that I was continually being given opportunities that I was scared to try and that I didn’t think were for me. But there were always people saying I was going to be fine and I shouldn’t worry about it. We shared that message about trying with our students, our staff and our community partners. It does not matter if you fail, a failure is just an opportunity to learn and try again. The most important thing you can do is to try. What we need in this world is people who are unafraid to try and make it better. We only lose hope when there are no people left to try.
That to me is the magic of Student Hubs.
We were always supported to try no matter what we thought we could do, no matter what our previous experiences were. The heart of Student Hubs is that we created a supportive environment for our students but also for each other to try.
I’m now going to talk about the intention behind our closure. We wanted to act in a way where the decision to close wasn’t taken from us, where we would suddenly disappear overnight and the students, university partners, and third sector organisations we’ve engaged with didn’t hear from us again. We wanted to be proactive, and center Student Hubs’ values – Motivational, Social, Bold, Ambitious and Long-term – in our decision making and approach. With the support of our Trustee Board and our wonderful staff team we had the opportunity to take a step back and look at what a good intentional closure looks like. We are creating resources and toolkits, we’re running webinars, we’re really thinking about the ways that we can capture everything we’ve learned – the good and the bad – and share that with the sector. Not just the higher education sector but also with other community organisations and students themselves. Giving that knowledge and support back to students so that they can continue to take that forward and shape their own initiatives and projects.
The thing that I really want you to take away from tonight is that just because Student Hubs is closing does not mean that this is the end.
Our Active Citizen Report is the culmination of lots of time listening to people who have participated in our activities this year, two years ago, five years ago, ten years ago. We’ve been hearing about the journeys that they’ve been on, and for lots of those individuals their engagement with Student Hubs ended when they graduated or moved on to other programmes and they grieved then. But what’s really stood out to me has been the fact that the impact has not ended.
Every day you go out into the world and you make decisions about what you’re going to do at work, and choices about how you live your life and how you interact with other people. Every day, whether you’re conscious of it or not, Student Hubs is there. It has shaped the way you think. In 10 years time maybe our reports and toolkits will still be out there, or maybe they’ll be replaced with better things – but all of you will still be out there. 200,000 other alumni will still be out there – making decisions to improve their lives, the lives of their communities, and the world around them.
My final call to action for you as the CEO of Student Hubs is this: on your journey home tonight, I would like you to have a think about what the magic of Student Hubs is for you.
I’d like you to hold onto that, tomorrow, a week from now or five years from now and keep sharing that message to keep Student Hubs alive. The only way we are going to make the world a better place is by actively participating in it, by being an active citizen.