Hello, I am Hiten Patel, and I am soon graduating with my master’s in Human Rights and Social Justice at Thompson Rivers University. The program has been mammoth to me, as it grabbed into technical aspects both on a personal and professional level. The experience has given me an actual taste of global justice, ethics, and advocacy—things that I have not read a lot about. In particular, the manner in which the coursework deconstructed the notions of capitalism, migration, and food systems and how they all combine together and eventually find their way back to the rights of former underprivileged groups, such as service workers and hospitality workers, has been helpful.
Prior to my joining TRU, I worked approximately ten years in the hospitality and tourism sector in India and Canada. I have been playing both a manager and a leading employee, and this practical experience demonstrated to me how the labor relations, the customer service, and the economic pressure of the field operate. However, after some time, I realized that a certain tendency exists: foreign labor resources were exploited, particularly in the case of short-term contracts when the rights and well-being security of migrants were not considered. I understood what was taking place and did not know what I was to do. The Human Rights and Social Justice program has been very beneficial. It has provided me the academic resources to delve into these matters and the connections to take those ideas into the real world. I’ve heard about the life of service of hospitality workers. The stories they share, coupled with my personal experiences, have demonstrated that much more remains to be done to ensure that these rights of these workers are not violated.
In my tenure as a university student, I began to understand how these issues all came together: how food justice, the monopoly of the agriculture industry in the production of food, and the legal and ethical enigma of migrant labor all come together. One of the most enlightening things that happened to me was getting to know the exploitative nature of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in Canada and how they get abused systematically. In July 2025, I got a job at Woolworths in Cairns, Australia. It was a very enlightening movement for me when I got the opportunity to work full-time as a manager in the middle of my master’s degree program. I can certainly connect now my class readings to the real-life scenarios. The new role will change the manner in which I grow as a leader and enable me to enjoy what I have learned concerning ethical labor, inclusion, and corporate responsibility. Moreover, Woolworths has a reputation of being an inclusive, fast-track type of place, so I am over the moon at continuing to grow in both personal and professional capacities.
In the future, I would like to speak out in support of good work and sustainability and keep on promoting decency that is truly in the common good. Education and moral responsibility go hand in hand, whether in industry or in the course of action in the public; to have a lasting change, there will be a need for education and moral responsibility.
Disclaimer: Photos in which the author appears were taken by a colleague or friend, and are used here with permission.