Run by the Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion, the UTS SOUL Award is a free program open to students from any faculty, at any stage of their degree, both undergraduate and postgraduate. The program is designed to complement learning by facilitating real world opportunities with the community sector to develop students’ professional skills, experience and social responsibility.
If your students are passionate about making a difference, we can support them to venture a little further, exploring outside the boundaries of their course and into the community. In doing so, they’ll pick up new skills, give something back, and make meaningful change in the world – setting them up for a lifetime of social impact.
Connecting students through social justice leadership and action
Every position sharpens my adaptability and understanding of community needs, both of which are essential in marketing. Not only am I learning about marketing through volunteering, but I’m also actively putting its principles into practice to have a positive impact.
Raghav Motani, Master of Marketing
The SOUL Award is a two-stage, co-curricular social justice leadership and action program which supports students to broaden their knowledge about social issues affecting our communities. Participants develop skills in cultural and social agility, communication, critical self-reflection, ethical leadership, project management and teamwork.
They do this in all kinds of ways, engaging in hands-on, social impact action through initiatives that could include partnerships with community organisations, or self-organised projects. Along the way, they develop new networks and friendships with a community of like-minded and passionate students from across UTS. Recent participants’ SOUL stories include collaborations with the Red Cross, volunteering as a Community Manager at TED X Parramatta, and even travelling to Ireland as a Youth Symposium representative.
SOUL Award steps: Join, grow, give, achieve
While volunteering, I could give back to the community from my past learnt experiences. In this phase, I was able to acquire and master different life skills such as leadership, communication, and networking. Volunteering was not only helping other students, but it was more about building a solid community and networks for future life. Throughout, I was able to make excellent professional networks in life.
Himanshu Mehta, Bachelor of Engineering and winner of Young Volunteer of the Year, Mid-Western Sydney Region
The 2-stage program starts with the UTS SOUL Badge, followed by the UTS SOUL Award.
- UTS SOUL Badge: students complete 35 social impact action hours, and develop skills in cross-cultural communication and inclusion, social justice concepts and ways to make social change through the EmpowerED Leadership Lab. Optional SOUL sessions offer connection with other ‘SOULies’ in the program.
- UTS SOUL Award: students complete an additional 55 social impact action hours and develop skills for social change at The Critical You workshop. They gain access to SOUL Starter Grants to see their social change ideas come to life, and receive personalised social justice leadership support.
Each stage follows 4 steps: join (getting started), grow (learning about leadership, critical thinking and social impact), give (social impact action hours), and achieve (recognition). Both stages are recognised with signed certificates from UTS, a LinkedIn recommendation, and SOUL graduation events. Those who complete the Award can also receive a letter of recommendation and formal recognition on their Australian Higher Education Graduate Statement.
Soul mates: getting your students involved
The SOUL Award helped me develop useful skills like teamwork, active communication and leadership. I talk about these skills and all the experiences I gained in job interviews and have put them on my resume.
Stephanie Lillin, Bachelor of IT
If you would like to introduce the program to your students, we’d love to help! To connect with your subject, we can:
- Deliver bespoke workshops and lectures around social justice, the community sector and skills for social change.
- Provide slides, information or videos about SOUL for Canvas and/or lectures
- Arrange for a SOUL student or staff member to speak to your students about the program
Download our collection of in-curriculum materials on the UTS SOUL Award Sharepoint site, or contact the team at soul.award@uts.edu.au to discuss how we can collaborate.