Laura O'Connell Rapira


Laura O'Connell Rapira is a grassroots leader, speaker and community activist from Aotearoa New Zealand. She advocates for equality around ethnicity, gender and LGBTIAQ peoples, the environment and political power for youth.

Biography

O'Connell Rapira was born in Taranaki and later moved to West Auckland where she attended Green Bay High School. She is Māori of the iwi Te Ātiawa, Ngāpuhi, Te Rarawa and Ngāti Whakaue. She got inspired to work on big festivals in the United Kingdom and went on to work on both the Glastonbury Festival and the Secret Garden Party.
As a young person she was part of an accelerator programme for social enterprise initiatives. From this O'Connell Rapira co-founded RockEnrol in 2014 to encourage young people to enroll to vote in New Zealand's general election.
O'Connell Rapira held positions at Greenpeace and Oxfam when she was living in the United Kingdom. In 2012 O'Connell Rapira raised awareness of the environment in her local area of West Auckland by proposing an environmental education centre and ecological retreat.
In 2014 she became the director of campaigns at social justice organisation ActionStation, where she focuses on digital campaigning.
O'Connell Rapira is a contributing writer to New Zealand news website The Spinoff.

Recognition

In 2017 she was nominated for the Te Whetū Maiangi Award for Young Achievers.

Personal life

O'Connell Rapira identifies as queer bi-sexual and is frank about this being a driver for her to seek social justice and equality in society. Her identity and stand about a range of areas has made her a target for online abuse.