Race Unity Speech Awards 2025: Jordyn Joy Pillay – National Champion with Dr Claire Achmad and Jessica Tupai 2024 National Champion.
Jordyn Joy Pillay has been named the National Champion of the Race Unity Speech Awards held at MIT’s Ngā Kete Wānanga Marae, ?tara over the weekend.
In her kōrero, the Year 12 Ormiston College student proposed a culturally inclusive curriculum, where every lesson weaves in different cultures and histories suggesting “diversity must be more than a moment – it must be a movement. Be the change you want to see.”
You can watch Jordyn’s winning speech below.
“Being named as the National Champion is a huge honour and this has been the biggest achievement in my life – it truly has topped everything I’ve done so far. My vision through writing and presenting my speech, was to offer tangible and real solutions to what we can do right now to make a difference,” Jordyn says.
MIT has hosted the event for the past five years, as well as sponsoring the Tohu Manaakitanga – the Manukau Institute of Technology Award for Manaakitanga.
This year, the tohu was won by Tanyn Wood, a Year 13 student from Mt Aspiring College in Wānaka.
“I was struck by one kōrero encouraging us to think of Aotearoa as not just a collection of people, but a collection of stories. A collection of rich, expansive and compelling stories if only we took the time to get to know them,” says MIT and Unitec Deputy Chief Executive – Academic, Professor Martin Carroll.
Twenty-one Year 11 to 13 rangatahi from more than fifteen different backgrounds and ethnicities, representing fourteen regions around the motu competed in the semi-finals on Saturday and attended the hui which is run alongside the awards.
