Gisborne Girls' High School student Estella Hepburn-Van Zyl won the regional heat of the Race Unity Speech Awards and qualified for the national final.
Gisborne Girls' High School student Estella Hepburn-Van Zyl won the regional heat of the Race Unity Speech Awards and qualified for the national final.
A powerful speech about overcoming racism has won Gisborne Girls’ High School student Estella Hepburn-Van Zyl the regional heat of the Race Unity Speech Awards.
She will go on to represent Tairāwhiti at the Race Unity Speech Awards national final and hui in Auckland on May 3-4.
Running for the last 25 years, the awards are a platform for young people to share their vision of practical and uplifting solutions for a unified and diverse society.
The awards are run by the New Zealand Bahá‘í community in partnership with New Zealand Police and the New Zealand Federation of Multicultural Councils.
This year’s theme was Te Moana Nui o te Kanorau – The Great Ocean of Diversity. The premise was “that we require interdependence and collaboration in our great oceans as well as in the human world if we are to create a united and harmonious society”.
In her speech, Hepburn-Van Zyl challenged the audience to think of racism, not as the scary shark in the ocean, but as the water all around.
She spoke of how silence in the face of racism could be a form of consent. The personal story she gave challenged the audience to reflect on the courage needed to speak up when they came across racism in daily interactions.
Overcoming racism must begin at childhood and be woven into the education system, she said.
Harawira Peerless performs a waiata ahead of Gisborne Girls' High student Quinn Haughey's speech at the Tairāwhiti regional heat of the Race Unity Speech Awards.
The second speaker, Quinn Haughey, made use of poetic metaphor throughout her speech.
She compared the journey of two friends in life to two fish with different coloured scales, who were swimming happily deep in the ocean when one was tragically caught by the hooks of racism.
The fish with silvery scales, who had not been caught, had a choice - swim on or refuse to leave its friend behind.
Awards Master of Ceremonies was lecturer and researcher Rewi Nankivell, whose children have competed in the awards on the national stage.
He acknowledged the hours of work that went into preparing speeches, as well as the support from teachers and whānau.
Awards chief judge Sergeant Aubrey Ormond said that as a police officer he had to wear protective clothing to keep out bullets, but the words of the two students had touched his heart.
Another judge - historian and orator Harawira Peerless - praised the students and said oratory in the country was clearly in good hands.
The third judge, historian and Treaty claims researcher Jane Luiten, complimented the students on their natural integration of te reo Māori into their speeches.
It was a beautiful example for other tauiwi [non-indigenous New Zealanders], she said.
The Tairāwhiti regional heat was held at Waikanae Surf Life Saving Club.
