Students were hard hit by the 2020 health crisis. Numerous measures to assist students were put in place at the University, steered and run by the students themselves. Two such students share their experience.
Testimonies: Chloé and Prescillia, students to the rescue during the pandemic
Under the initiative of the Student Affairs Department, the Lugéline hotline was launched in April 2020 to help students in difficulty. When she was contacted to join the team running this service, Chloé Casaca, a 3rd-year student in History, accepted without a second thought: ‘I just wanted to help, to lend my support.’
Students to students
‘The idea behind Lugeline is simple: a student leaves a message on the answerphone with their first and last names and possibly the reason for their call. Each message is then classified before one of us calls back. We speak student to student, which makes it easier for people to open up. Having the same age and informal approach also helps to create a stronger bond.’ In spring 2020, most of the calls were related to issues of equipment, such as the lack of a computer, but as the crisis continued, other financial or administrative problems began to emerge. ‘Students were calling us because they had lost their job. There were also foreign students facing issues related to visas or the administrative management of their studies.’
In late 2020, the isolation of a second lockdown led to ‘emotional exhaustion for students, and we had to provide a lot of moral support.’ Once they had identified the type of problem, the students running Lugeline searched for the most appropriate solution. ‘We guided callers towards the Student Affairs, social welfare or university medical teams and the CROUS.’ Within a year of its launch, Lugeline had brought its assistance to 577 students.
A year of solidarity
3rd-year History student Prescillia Da Silva is a proximity officer. This role as the intermediary between students and players of university life helped, in Prescillia’s view, ‘to bring out what people were feeling’. Her task became ‘more vital than ever’ during the health crisis. ‘We found ourselves facing an unprecedented workload. Students, teachers, everyone was calling on us’. In light of the strong demand, ‘the proximity officers had to get organised so we were reachable by SMS, on social networks, or via a Facebook group. Our role [was] to centralise and provide information.’
‘Our role to centralise and provide information was more vital than ever’
While many of her tasks involved ensuring teaching continuity (sharing of exercises, instructions, or teacher-student communication), Prescillia Da Silva and her colleagues also had to deal with new issues, ‘in particular managing the risks of drop-out which emerged with the second lockdown.’ Students who were already worn out by the first lockdown found themselves overwhelmed by the workload and remote lessons, ‘but thanks to mutual help and solidarity, many of them managed to stay the course to the very end’, Prescillia assures us. 'Our role came to the fore and gained in strength during this crisis', she concludes.