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Thursday 19th November 2020| PALATINATE
News
GoFundMe launched for severely injured student
Ella Bicknell News Reporter Friends and family of Tom Lazarides have launched a fundraising page for the third-year business and management student, who suffered life changing injuries after a swimming pool accident in June 2020. Tom was visiting a friend’s swimming pool during the summer holiday. When diving into the pool, he fractured his neck in two places and sustained a serious spinal cord injury. The Durham student was airlifted to an intensive care bed King’s College Hospital in London. For many weeks he could breathe only with the assistance of a ventilator. During the summer, Tom contracted rhabdomy-
olysis, a condition where skeletal muscles break down, which slowed his recovery. The Hild Bede student has been described as a popular young man who loved to play sports. He played county-level cricket, rugby, and was a valued member of Durham University’s golf team. Speaking to Kent Online, his mother, Bridget Lazarides, said “I am incredibly grateful that he is alive and incredibly lucky that he is starting to recover”.
Tom’s friends aimed to raise £30,000 over the summer, climbing mountains and completing swim challenges in freezing waters Tom is now able to breathe unaided and no longer needs to
wear a neck brace. According to fundraising pages set up to aid Tom’s recovery, “he now faces the very realistic possibility of being discharged to a care home, with no realistic path to recovery on the NHS, and limited access to physiotherapy”. The family is now looking to move him from Stoke Mandeville hospital, which can only offer four 45-minute physiotherapy sessions a week, which will enable Tom to fulfil his potential. The GoFundMe page, “A Ton for Tom”, aims to raise £100,000 to fund what is needed to start his recovery. It is projected that a bed at the rehab hospital will cost £10,000 a week and ongoing physiotherapy will cost £3,700 a week. Tom is determined to finish his degree and is planning his long-term future, however, treatment has been dramatically cut due to Covid-19.
Tom’s friends raised over £30,000 during the summer, climbing mountains and completing swim challenges in freezing waters. Since 9th November, the GoFundMe has raised over £8,500 from 100 donations, ranging from £5 to £5,000. One donor commented, “I don’t know the man but I felt like I had to help. Hopefully everything starts looking up for him. Stay strong!” Olympic gold medallist Sir Mo Farah sent a video to offer his support: “I know you’re fighting right now, a tough battle but believe in yourself, I know you can win it.” Cricket players including England Captain Joe Root, a variety of Premiership rugby players and Liverpool’s Joe Gomez have all sent Tom video messages. As well as the GoFundMe Page, Tom’s school and university friends set up “Tom’s Fight” with
a series of fundraising challenges aimed to raise £30,000 over the summer. Their first swim challenge took them from Bradfordon-Avon to Bristol, swimming 36km over two days and raising £19,000. Their second challenge involved climbing Ben Nevis followed by a swim from Fort William to Fort Augustus, through the Caledonian Canal and Lochs, covering over 26 miles through freezing waters. They then returned by canoe and climbed the summit of Nevis again. One of Tom’s best friends, Will Bryant, is also running a marathon in Florida in March to fundraise for Tom’s recovery, and has so far raised £2,230 out of his £3,800 target. Tom’s supporters have created an Instagram account to update followers on the developments in his recovery and fundraising.
DPOCA: “Performative actions mean nothing”
Continued from front The University Executive, in response, told Palatinate: “The Respect At Study procedure covers all forms of potential bullying and harassment. In some less serious cases, speaking to, or writing to, the person concerned to let them know that their behaviour is unacceptable can be sufficient to remedy the situation. For serious allegations of racist behaviour this approach would not be appropriate. The Respect At Study policy is currently subject to review, including consultation with students.” DPOCA’s letter also claims, in reference to a cultural survey conducted following the signing of the Race Equality Charter: “The findings of this survey expose how the university fails to acknowledge significant issues like the low BAME representation amongst staff. The composition of the senate discipline commit-
tee, for example, is worrying as there are only three BAME members out of nineteen.” The University executive argued that signing up to the Race Equality Charter was “an important reflection of our desire to address racial inequalities as part of the University’s wide-ranging commitments to equality, diversity and inclusion. The framework will help us to identify what we can do to support the representation and achievement of our minority ethnic staff and students across our whole University community.” Another major theme of the letters was a perceived lack of transparency in terms of incidents of racism. DPOCA said: “The University does not provide publicly the statistics on the number of reported incidents, open investigations and outcomes of racist incidents. This means that the true extent of racist incidents that occur at this University are not known. We relaunched our
(Beatrice Law) ‘Recognise, Report, and Resist’ form recently and in three days we have had almost 20% of reports that the total reports that the Report and Support tool had over the last year. We ask that the university increases transparency and make these statistics be available to the public.” Several of the letters also cite statistics that 62% of students do not think anything will happen if they report a hate crime. The University Executive pointed to its new “online Report and Support tool through which staff, students and visitors can report unwanted behaviours and seek support: reportandsupport. durham.ac.uk.” The letter claimed that DPOCA had provided its college POC representatives with Anti-racism training, and criticised the University for not doing so itself. “If the university were to provide POC Reps with adequate support, it would make tackling racism at the college level so much easier. If
the university really cared about making Durham a safe space, they wouldn’t leave it up to students to do all the groundwork. This is your responsibility.” The University told Palatinate: “When the College People of Colour (POC) representative structure was introduced in August 2020, the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Unit worked with the Durham People of Colour Association (DPOCA) and provided funding to support training for the POC representatives. We continue to work closely with DPOCA and look forward to doing so in future, including through our work on respect and tackling racial inequalities.”
“Performative actions mean nothing if you refuse to address and work on the racist issues within the university” The main letter from DPOCA acknowledged recent statements made by the University, such as that by Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Anthony Long, that “Racism has no place at Durham University”. Similarly, following the death of George Floyd, the University stated that it is united in tackling ‘ignorance, intolerance and hatred.’ The University continued: “We condemn all racism and hate crime in the strongest possible terms. Racism has no place at Durham University. “We are working to build a safe, respectful and inclusive environment. We acknowledge we have more to do to make this a reality for everyone, but we are working hard to achieve this. “Having signed the Race Equality Charter in March 2019, we are working to understand any insti-
tutional or cultural barriers that may stand in the way of BAME staff and students, and to improve the representation, progression and success of BAME staff and students within our University community. “Professor Jacqui Ramagge, our Executive Dean for Science, and a representative from the BAME Staff Network, currently chair a Black Lives Matter round-table discussion for University staff, which has been meeting with University Executive representatives to discuss relevant issues and identify opportunities to address structural inequalities from a race perspective. “Also Professor Simon Forrest, Principal of the College of St Hild and St Bede, has chaired a roundtable discussion involving students and senior University staff including Executive members. This has led to the University providing financial support to a student-led project aimed at supporting access to higher education by people of colour. “We have made it a University priority to take forward the recommendations of the Durham Commission on Respect, Values and Behaviour. We are currently seeking nominations to a Respect Oversight Group, which will oversee their delivery and report on progress to the University Executive. For more information on getting involved or making a nomination, please visit the Durham University website. “The vast majority of our community embrace our shared goal of creating an environment that is respectful and inclusive. However, where behaviour falls below the standards we would expect, we will take swift and decisive action.”
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