Patricia speaking about Shopfront and Yung Prodigy at the 2023 UTS Social Impact Showcase
Follow your passion is advice given to many young people about everything from education to job prospects. UTS honours student Patricia Tolentino followed this advice and found exciting new possibilities open up to her.
A keen interest in social justice led her to a study a Bachelor of Communications in Social and Political Science.
"It was through doing my degree that I realised how I could help change the world. There are so many social issues close to my heart and my degree really deepened and fostered that."
This passion sustained her throughout the remote-learning years of 2020 and 2021, and motivated her to get involved in the student programs offered at UTS. Patricia joined UTS SOUL, a social justice and action program and The Big Lift, a student society focusing on regional volunteering. These two experiences gave her vital real-world experiences.
Real world experiences
Through the SOUL Practera Accelerator Program Patricia was part of a team who proposed researched recommendations to the Red Cross to better engage young people. She even led the implementation of one strategy ‘Twenty Ways to do More Good,’ a month-long campaign between SOUL and the Red Cross.
With The Big Lift, Patricia volunteered in regional and remote Australian towns alongside dozens of other passionate students. The experiences were so impactful that they led to her becoming more involved as the Executive Marketing Director. The dozens of hours she recorded volunteering were recognised through the SOUL program.
“These experiences really opened my eyes to the many challenges facing different communities. From the needs of rural and regional communities to thinking about how to engage young people in everyday acts of humanitarianism.”
Putting theory into practice
In her final year of her Bachelor, she took this passion and combined it with the critical thinking developed through her degree. Through UTS Shopfront’s Community Coursework program, Patricia chose to work with Yung Prodigy, a grassroots organisation supporting young people whose parents had or were experiencing incarceration.
“I was really interested in this overlap of the education and criminal justice system. There are so many First Nations young people that stand within the fractures of these two institutions. Why is it, that despite decades of so-called progress, of “closing the gap”, that these systems continued to fail Indigenous youth?”
She was able to address this question in her research, igniting a spark for research that opened up new possibilities.
New opportunities
“I had actually been so certain about a different career path, however this experience made me realise how much I truly love research. It made me realise that privileging marginalised voices through the contribution of knowledge is something that I want to pursue in my career.”
Fast forward to 2024, Patricia has found herself continuing on at UTS through an honours degree while getting further experience in the field of Human Rights working as a volunteer case worker with Amnesty International Australia. She weaves this experience into her honours thesis, researching the marginalised groups who fall between the cracks of International Human Rights support systems.
Rather than an outside, one-off experience, these social justice programs have complemented her in-class learning, “It has all been a process of learning and unlearning things I’ve internalised my whole life. I think completely differently now. My degree and experiences have fostered my ability to think for myself, to think beyond the information and experience that’s been given to me.”
Patricia plans to continue to work in the human rights sector. With all the real-world experience she has across research, marketing and first-hand volunteering, Patricia is set up for a lifetime of social impact.
In August 2024, Patricia won the Outer Western Sydney Young Volunteer of the year award.
SOUL is a social justice leadership and action program open to all UTS students at any stage of their degree. It recognises and rewards social impact both on and off-campus by providing students with the skills and opportunities to take action on issues that matter to them.