Tue 15 Mar 2016 In: New Zealand Daily News View at Wayback View at NDHA
The ILGA Oceania (International lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex association) has announced its elected officer holders for the ILGA Oceania Board, with a local LGBTI rights advocate announced as Co-convenor. Former Marriage Equality Campaign Manager, Rawa Karetai has been announced as Co-convenor of the LGA Oceania Board for the term 2016 to 2018 alongside Ymania Brown from Samoa. Elected Board members also include Joleen Mataele, Ken Moala, Mani Bruce Mitchell, Sulique Waqa and Tony Briffa, with Simon Margan as Secretary and Corey Irlam as Treasurer. Currently in his third term as chairperson of Rainbow Wellington, new Co-convenor Karetai has championed International Human Rights campaigns in particular highlighting the work still needed in the Pacific, Africa, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, South America and Turkey. He has also helped submit on documents to the United Nations and the Commonwealth Head of Government Meetings as well as to the select committees of the New Zealand Government. Brown was the Co-convenor for 2014 – 2016 and wanted to continue the work the Board had already done in setting ILGA Oceania up. Faafafine identified with 15 years’ experience in corporate Australia, Brown also brings to the Board eight years of experience in NGOs as the Senior Technical Advisor on the Samoa Faafafine Association and member of its Executive Council. She is completing a double Masters in Law and LLM (Migration Law) this year and is the mother of two children aged 17 and 10. ILGA Oceania is one of six regions of ILGA World (International lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex association) and represents the geographic region encompassed by the sovereign countries of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, based on the South Pacific Forum as well as the non-sovereign territories located in the Oceania Region.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 15th March 2016 - 7:23pm