A Tauranga teenager has won a national speech competition which aims to promote racial unity.
Kimberly D'Mello, 16, won this year's Race Unity Speech Competition in Auckland at the weekend. The Aquinas College student said she was passionate about taking steps to reduce racism in New Zealand.
"I feel so privileged for having been given the opportunity to do something about it."
View video of Kimberly's live speech below.
Kimberly, who was born in India but spent most of her life in New Zealand, said she had not experienced racism directly but had seen and heard it and thought "why not" when the school offered her the chance to take part in the contest. "If anyone can make a change, I guess it's New Zealanders. We've done so much already. It's easy to solve it ourselves ..."