Euraf Candidate Interview: Ali Dilavarhoussen

Interview by Alice Coubronne

Please introduce yourself.

My name is Ali Dilavarhoussen, I am 18 years old, I have lived in many countries, especially in Africa. I have lived in Ethiopia and in Central African Republic. 

What makes you qualified for this position?

I really want to work in communications in my future career. In fact, I already have some experience, which I want to share with my fellow Euraf students. 

What do you think the role of a student representative at Sciences Po Reims is/should be?

I think the student representative should, of course, represent the students. He should ask the students what they actually want to do, what are their projects, and he should fight for the application of these projects. In an ideal Sciences Po Reims, the student representative should be only an intermediary between the administration and the students, and he should only control the process of communication between the administration and the students. As we can see in our school, the communication between the administration and the students is really poor so I really want to fight to increase this communication, through referendums and other means. 

Why are you running to be a student representative? 

I’m running for this office because I am sure that other candidates are surely very good, but I really do my best for the students. I want to help everyone and I really wish they’d give me this opportunity. I think it would be a chance for the students to have me. 

As a student representative what would be your mission/main goals (i.e. explain your platform)?

I am really disappointed by the fact that we are in an Euraf program, but we don’t have a single course which really talks about Africa. I already discussed this with many of the other Euraf students, and I really want to pressure the administration to put in place more specialized courses for the second semester. And even if the admin doesn’t want to, we’ll do our best to organize something among ourselves and with the associations in order to have some sort of class about Africa. 

My second project would be to establish detailed reports for the students regarding what is done by the student reps. Because for now, we don’t know what they did and can’t control what they’re doing. Two years is a very long period, so through these reports we should ask students for their advice, because we are beginners at this job, and the goal is to get the students’ opinions in order to improve together. 

My third project would be to generalize online voting, through more referendums.

What is the one thing that as a student representative, you’d like to change or reform?

The second act of the “Collège universitaire.” I consider Sciences Po as a multidisciplinary school, so the idea of forcing students to chose a major and to remove the elective classes goes against this very idea, that one can enjoy economy while doing anthropology.

Finally, if could be any living person for a day, who would you be and why?

Alexander the Great for his charisma and leadership, and because he always knew how to make the right decisions at the right moment for his army. That’s what made him so famous.

Photo: Clémentine Mariani

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