Selina Akter
Selina specializes in social work, ethnic community, family violence and women empowerment. Selina’s research interests are indigenous culture, spirituality and social work, critical reflective practice and motivation. She is a member of the Social Work Registration Board of New Zealand and Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers. Selina also has received awards including Commonwealth Scholarship, Fellowship award for Ph.D. and Cultural Diversity Award. Currently, Selina’s employment is in academia, specializing in social work and research. Selina has contributed to the field of family violence enormously by providing external social work supervision to Shakti Community Council, developing a training module for survivors of domestic violence and creating publications on family violence and women empowerment.
Paul Siulepa
Paul is a Language Literacy and Numeracy advocate and has provided workplace literacy instruction across different industries and workforces. Paul has a literacy career that commenced in New Zealand but spanned Australia. Paul has always been in workplace literacy and training with projects in Transport, Primary Produce, Hospital Logistics and Corporate business. He is passionate about the future, having seen many people entering new industries and new employment in the last few years.
Paul’s background is also immigration, having worked for the New Zealand Immigration Service and been an Immigration Adviser for many years.
Paul wrote The Wayfinder Programme, a goal-setting course that assists migrants with learning about settling into New Zealand with an LLN framework that helps new settlers to New Zealand with workplace English and becoming conversant and proficient in their future vocations.
Marian Kerepeti Edwards
Ko Ngatiwai toku iwi. Marian brings over 20 years experience in Local and International Education as Founding Director and owner of NZQA Registered and accredited PTE in New Zealand and registered RTO CRICOS accredited Training Provider in Australia. Supported by registered marketing and research offices in India, China, Pacific Islands and South Asia. Current Community positions include: Multicultural New Zealand Council – Vice President. COGS Funding Committee. Multicultural Whangarei Council – President. Trustee on several Hapu and Marae Trust Boards. I am actively involved in sharing my skills and experience to help strengthen our communities.
Sophia Li
Sophia is a non-profit professional experienced in program design, management, monitoring & evaluation and policy advocacy. Born and raised as an ethnic minority woman in China, she is passionate about supporting and empowering ethnic and migrant women and has a strong commitment to gender equity and social justice. Sophia has a Master’s degree in Public Policy.
Zahida Akter
Zahida moved to New Zealand in 1996 with her family as a skilled migrant- after completing her Master’s in social welfare from the University of Dhaka.
She finds great satisfaction in supporting the community and those in need. This can be reflected from her experience as a support worker, having worked closely with the intellectually disabled.
