Zamzam Ibrahim is a student politician who is the President of the UKNational Union of Students. She is also the incumbent President and a founding trustee of Students Organising for Sustainability. She succeeds Shakira Martin. She was formerly the NUS Vice President of Society & Citizenship. This follows her term as Salford Students' Union President 2017-2018 and Vice-President of Business and Law 2015–2016. Before she was a full-time officer at NUS, she served on the National Executive Committee for two years.
Early Life and Career
Zamzam was born in Sweden in 1994 and is Somali, but moved to Greater Manchester at an early age. She is fluent in Swedish, Somali and English. Before becoming an elected officer at NUS, Zamzam worked as a fundraiser for Penny Appeal, an Interpreter for Pearl Linguistics Ltd, a Radio Presenter at ALLFM 96.9 and a Project Worker at Bolton Solidarity Community Association. She has been a vocal advocate against FGM. She went to the University of Salford and gained a first class degree in Accounting & Finance. During her time at University she was President of the Somali society and was in multiple other societies such as TedX and Business. She has volunteered for organisations such as Human Appeal.
Presidency of NUS
Ibrahim took office on 1 July 2019. During her term as President she has headed up multiple campaigns including the drive to get young people registered to vote in the 2019 General Election, the campaign for a National Education Service and leading the Teach the Future Campaign. At the time of taking over the NUS, it was in a financial crisis where it was in £3 million deficit. During her Presidency, the financial position improved to having a surplus of £200k after the reforms that the officer team which Zamzam sat on a Vice President of Society and Citizenship proposed the previous year. Zamzam has been a Trustee of NUS from 2018–2020. She will be succeeded by Larissa Kennedy in July 2020.
Campaigns
Zamzam's campaigns throughout her role as Vice President of Society and Citizenship focused on building a media response unit that helped student activists who were targeted by the right-wing media because of their activism. This campaign taught students about what their rights are when it comes to the media and what to do if they found themselves on the wrong side of the media. She also focused on showing that climate change is a race issue which lead her to speak on many student panels across the UK and at the Youth Climate Strike in September 2019. This activism surrounding the climate has led to Zamzam being a well-renowned climate activist and being nominated for Young European of the Year 2020 as a result of this activism. This campaign followed throughout her presidency with the launch of Students Organising for Sustainability UK and the campaign for Teach the Future, which campaigns for school children to be taught about the climate and the climate crisis. In her presidency, her priority campaign was the launch of the National Education Service, which focussed on building and lobbying for a funded, accessible and life-long education service in the UK. This was also a major feature of the 2019 Labour manifesto.
Awards
Zamzam has been the recipient of many awards such as the Natural Born Leader Award, North 30 Under 30, NUS Black Students' Campaign Award for Black Representation, Young Woman of the Year and Star of the Community Award.
