Specialising in the production of progressive audio-visual content and campus activism, ‘STAND’ is a little known website and advocacy group funded through the Department of Foreign Affairs and their Irish Aid programme.
Existing under the umbrella of the Suas Educational Fund, which according to most recent financial accounts received €911,000 in state and philanthropic support, STAND has a cross campus presence campaigning on the issues of social inclusion and global inequality.
Trinity students may recall passing some of STAND’s handiwork in the form of lethargic pro-refugee propaganda placed outside the Berkeley library. Existing since 2013, STAND specialises in the rearing of a new generation of activists working alongside student unions.
For this progressive grandstanding The Burkean was curious to spot job adverts for the group offering student roles at rather unprogressive salaries.
Seeking event coordinators and students to work at their Mount Street office, applicants are expected to work 3.5 days a week for the grand reward of a €50 stipend. Marketed as an internship to grant volunteers a foot in the door in the riveting world of a ‘global-justice oriented non-profit organisation’, this amounts to the perky figure of €1.75 an hour.
Eliciting an immediate and negative reaction from left activists for a certain degree of hypocrisy, a tweet promoting the role was tastefully deleted by the USI, but not after being captured by The Burkean.
Transphobes be dammed, those throwing their hat in the ring must be sure to state their preferred gender identity with the prospect of working at wages that would make a Moldovan meat packer in Monaghan blush.
Looking through STAND’s archive one can pick up a fair few articles excoriating the alleged rise of the far right in Ireland, such as this October 2020 piece laying into anti-lockdown protestors.
For those who’ve worked the grind, internships are a thankless and rarely fulfilling part of getting on the ladder, or in this case stepladder of real work. STAND is no different than the jungle of firms and agencies offering meagre benefits for the time and spadework of students.
However the posturing on inequality makes the stipend rather more appalling, especially in light of the cash and resources granted to them by the state.
In of itself STAND is just another brick in the wall of the salaried army of activists who shore up late stage neoliberal Ireland and who are the direct source of many of our ills. Have some empathy for whatever young fools are found to staff these roles but not too much.
For those contemplating joke applications the deadline for the roles end August 12th.
Lavishly funded http://Www.iiea.com recruited ( through it’s website ) unpaid interns until 3 yrs ago . Socialists – Brendan Halligan & Ruairi Quinn were ( seemingly ) unaware of the minimum wage .
Being prosecuted for breaching the ” Wages act ” is as probable as a failed asylum seeker being deported . A fortnightly satirical mag advertised an ” unpaid editorship ” in 2018 ❗
Excellent piece on turf GRIPT covers well. Many moons ago, I got TCDSU to remove ads exploiting Irish students picking fruit in the Netherlands. This is far worse. It is of interest USI support it. In defence of these scammers, once they pay their back handers and award their prizes to their mates, there is little but a pittance to pay the skivvies they exploit. A total astro turf scam, using and abusing students but one designed to capture more of the public square by the same cast of grifters and hypocrites .
I tempted to have a crack at the role, given the enormous range of material to feed off of.
Would it be going to far to suggest that I would offer to undertake the internship at 1 Euro per-hour in order to prove my burgeoning lefty credentials?