Abdo Ethar Salama is a fourth-year aerospace engineering student running as an independent vice-president (internal) candidate in this year’s Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) election.
Previous experience
Salama says he has been involved with almost all the clubs and societies on campus and has around 26 to 28 co-curricular credits.
“I know there’s more than 250 [clubs and societies], but I’ve had the opportunity and the chance to be involved with a lot of them,” he said, such as the Egyptian Students’ Association, CU Smile, the Womxn’s Centre, the Arabian Student League and the CUSA street team to name a few.
Salama was also an engineering councillor in 2018.
Reasons for running
Salama, an international student from Egypt, said he never had the opportunity to get involved in his home country.
“When I came here to campus, my friend told me, ‘you won’t ever, ever find this chance again,’ having this diverse community, having almost 30,000 students on campus sharing the same area and everything with you,” he said.
Salama said his involvement with numerous clubs has led to him making personal connections with “all types” of people, and he’s usually the first one students go to when they need help or support with their clubs or groups.
“I’ve always been the hook-up because they know that whenever it comes to helping students and everything, I’m the actual one who could take care of them and get them whatever they need.”
Slate or independent?
Salama said he chose to run as an independent candidate to combat the misconception that slates are the ones who “rule over” the elections.
“Having a slate running together as a team, it doesn’t give individuals the opportunity to go away from the plan, to have their own thinking.”
“There’s no diversity when you go with a slate because you have only one goal as a team,” he said, adding that having independent candidates encourages students with different backgrounds, thoughts, and goals to run.
Campaign goals
If elected, Salama hopes to improve the transparency around CUSA through more consultations with students and club executives, as well as offering the option to clubs and societies of off-campus funding.
“We could afford and we can teach them, educate them on how to talk to people, it’s very easy. They just need to have the right tools and training to do it,” he said.
Salama also wants to make the campus more sustainable and decrease its carbon footprint through awareness and sustainable materials.
As an international student himself, Salama also wants to implement more supportive measures for international students such as introducing an emergency fund.
“A lot of problems happen to international students and we only have the ISSO (International Student Services Office) office to support that,” he said, adding that CUSA has the budget and opportunity to implement such a fund.
Salama also wants to provide international students with the support they may need getting visas, jobs and learning their tenant rights.
“Being an international student or being a student who lives in a different city in Canada [who] comes to Carleton, and he just moved out of his parent’s house and he doesn’t know his rights or what he can do or what he can’t, we can teach them about this.”
Final thoughts
“I actually want to give back. That’s my main goal,” Salama said, adding that his involvement with multiple clubs has given him an idea of the different needs of different students.
“I’ve been doing research with all clubs, with all students, with a diverse group of people. What do you need? What do you want? What do you actually want to have on campus in the future?”
Salama also encouraged students to get involved on campus in order to have their voices heard and give back to the community.
“I want to give students their power back,” he said.
“Now, if you vote for me, if people vote for me, I’ll have the opportunity to actually get the tools and everything and give students their voices, their support and everything that they need.”
Featured image by Tim Austen.
