Tebat Kadhem is a fourth-year student running with the SCSYou slate for the position of Vice-President Equity. Her main platform points centre around improving accessibility on campus.
Kadhem is the current Secretary General for the Scarborough Model United Nations Conference, President of the Law Society of UTSC, and Public Law Director for the Political Science Students’ Association.
Kadhem’s first priority would be to create an accessible study space on campus for students registered with Accessibility Services.
The ideal space would include “assistive technology like ZoomText, JAWS, the CCTV, all of these tools that are used by students with disability that are normally not provided by the university,” said Kadhem.
Kadhem estimated that the costs would “be around $10,000–20,000 to get the initiative started” based on “funding formulas” around furniture and other expenses.
On money, she said that “there are [a] lot of departments that would love to contribute to the initiative.” She continued, “I’m sure a lot of different departments have the money, so it wouldn’t be hard in terms of getting the money.”
Other accessibility initiatives that she is planning include incentivizing student note-takers, mandating that all food vendors have braille menus, and ensuring that the campus has effective snow clearance.
On the problem of equitable food at UTSC, Kadhem plans to work with the current vendors on campus to include more halal, vegan, vegetarian, and lactose-intolerant options.
“It’s very frightening for someone that depends on food from this campus on a daily basis that if you forget to pack a lunch one day, you might be starving for the entire day,” she said.
Kadhem specifically plans to lobby for current vendors in the Student Centre and at the Farmers’ Market to expand their food options, highlighting that they would “see a monetary benefit.” However, Kadhem said that she did not intend for the SCSU to provide “monetary kickbacks” to financially incentivize vendors to expand food options.
