Student Switch Off ambassadors
Who knows best how to communicate with other students living in dormitories? Of course, it is the students living there themselves.
Like with all campaigns, one of the most important aspects, is ensuring that it is communicated as widely as possible. For the Student Switch Off campaign, students across the participating universities are invited to come along to an hour long training session, where they get to find out in more detail what the aims of the campaign are, find out a bit more about behaviour change theory and learn some tips and tricks on how to engage their peers. These students become 'ambassadors' for the campaign, and their role is to raise awareness of it amongst their friends and flatmates living with them in dormitories. They do this through encouraging them to sign up to pledge to save energy through the campaign, take part in regular photo competitions, and even hold their own events, such as movie nights (environmentally themed) or cooking together to save energy.
Ambassadors can get involved in the 'ambassador challenge' whereby they get rewarded based on how many actions they take. For example in the UK, students who get involved in four or more ways, get a CV reference from NUS UK, and if they have completed seven or more, they get put into a draw to win a pair of Eurostar tickets to go to Paris :) Becoming an ambassador is also a great way to break the ice and meet others living in the dormitories, and make some new like minded friends!
To date over a 140 Student Switch Off ambassadors have been trained at SAVES 2 universities, with many more training sessions scheduled to take place in the coming weeks.
We are really excited how motivated and enthusiastic the students have been, and look forward to what they can achieve over the coming year!
