GISA Fall 2025 Candidate Profiles: Deepannita Kundu for Welfare Committee President

In conversation with Deepannita Kundu, MINT 1st Year Student.

Q: What makes you the ideal candidate for your role, and how do you believe your background will help you succeed in this position?

I see myself as an ideal candidate because I bridge the personal and the political. Having lived with clinical anxiety while navigating the challenges of moving from India to Geneva, I know first-hand the importance of accessible support structures. But beyond personal experience, my academic training teaches me to think in terms of power, systems, and structural inequalities. This allows me to approach welfare not as charity but as justice: dismantling barriers that make student life precarious and reimagining well-being as a collective responsibility. 

My background gives me both empathy for the lived realities of students and the analytical tools to design systemic interventions that last beyond my tenure.

Q: How do you plan to approach the role in a way that ensures the smooth running of GISA’s operations and fosters a collaborative atmosphere?

I will approach this role with two guiding principles: predictability and participation. 

Predictability means creating transparent workflows, clear timelines, and consistent updates so students know what to expect from GISA and how to engage with us. 

Participation means ensuring that students are not passive recipients of decisions but co-creators in shaping welfare policies. To foster collaboration, I will initiate structured dialogues between committees, encourage co-hosted events, and build bridges between student-led initiatives and institutional resources. 

I want GISA to feel less like a distant body and more like an extension of the student community itself.

Q: What past experiences have prepared you for the challenges of this role, and how will you use these experiences to improve GISA’s efficiency?

I have engaged with multiple student initiatives in my undergrad. I was also the head of PR and Communications at our student-run theatre society. These experiences have given me the tools to successfully manage a position of leadership and work with accountability and transparency.

I also interned at an NGO called Pratham where we taught kids from disempowered communities. This experience has taught me how welfare works in the real world and how we manage multiple stakeholders while maximising the good work we can do. 

I have been volunteering at La Farce, this is teaching me how to balance resource constraints with compassion. 

Q: If elected, what would be your primary goal and how would you ensure its successful implementation during your tenure?

My primary goal would be to embed well-being as rights, not privileges, within the Institute. 

Concretely, this means:

• institutionalizing the food distribution drive, 
• securing guaranteed budget lines for affordable wellness activities, 
• ensuring transparent communication on financial aid processes. 
• and much more…

My strategy is to avoid one-off fixes and instead build structures that survive leadership changes, ensuring that these initiatives become part of the Institute’s DNA.

Q: How do you plan to make GISA more accessible and transparent for students, particularly when it comes to administrative processes and decision-making?

Accessibility requires not just more information, but better-designed information. 

I will prioritize clarity by introducing multilingual, visually engaging guides on financial aid, housing, and health services. 

Transparency will mean moving beyond reporting decisions after they are made: I will open up the process through pre-decision consultations, feedback surveys, and quarterly town-halls where students can shape the agenda. 

Q: What are three core values you bring to your role?

Kindness, Integrity and Perseverance

Q: Lastly, a few creative ways or plans of action (chance to do something different)

• A monthly Wellbeing Café as a participatory platform: where discussions can feed directly into GISA action points.
• Neurodivergence Support Group: A space for individuals who identify as neurodivergent to find a supportive community that helps them flourish. I plan on collaborating with the career services to bring a special Counsellor for a session with the group. 
• Welfare Walks: I love taking walks especially if it’s sunny outside. For my office hours, I will propose a one on one walk with the approaching student if they are comfortable.