For race relations initiatives.

Kelsey was a finalist in the 2009 Race Unity Speech Awards. Following the awards she applied the principles she spoke about in her speech to her life at school and in her local community. Kelsey established a race unity group at Otago Girls High, where students from different cultures shared things about themselves and their lives. The group organised an international day with different types of food and cultural performances. She also spoke at a local primary school, where students had studied her speech. The students discussed different cultures and races living together.

Kelsey’s speech on ‘Good Neighbours Come from All Different Races and Cultures’ provoked thought about harmony and conflict between neighbours, and how “each of us has to make an effort, change will not come if we don’t act, if we don’t stop talking past each other, if we don’t stop just hearing and start actually listening, because as Henry David Thoreau once said ‘things do not change; we change’.”

The 2010 Race Unity Speech Awards, organised nationally in association with Race Relations Day, are coming up soon. More information is available on our website: the deadline for applications is March 8.