Judith (Huti) Watson

2019 Cohort

Pronouns: she/her

Huti is developing an innovative, locally driven health promotion program to strengthen and develop Indigenous community-led approaches to health improvement, and increase community engagement and ownership of wellness.

Huti is a Ngati Porou / Tainui woman from Te Araroa Aotearoa and is passionate about advancing equity for Indigenous peoples, particularly in health, research, and economic development. Conversant in her native tongue, Te Reo, Huti believes that Indigenous cultural traditions and frameworks are as relevant today as they were in the past and are not at odds with the modern world. She brings this analysis to bear in her work as a consultant and in her governance roles in genetic research, health, and business using decolonizing and anti-racism methodologies as tools to strengthen and empower communities and groups to reclaim their autonomy.

Based principally in the Tairawhiti Aotearoa and Weipa Qld Australia, Huti is Executive Director Jureda Pty Ltd Australia. She works as a consultant in both Australia and Aotearoa with several board positions and governance appointments.

Her consultancy work is for an Aboriginal corporation in Cape York, Queensland, Australia along with other contract work in Australia, and governance and consulting work in Aotearoa. This includes: the Aotearoa Variome Project, an initiative to assemble a genomic resource that reflects genetic variation currently existing across Māori, sitting on the Māori Data Leadership Panel, Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR), and on the Māori Governance Ropu for the Trio-sequencing project in Auckland. She has also recently taken a board appointment to Ahi Komau, who will be working to facilitate more opportunities for Māori to build on Māori-owned land.

“Mātauranga Māori frameworks validate community identity and legitimise cultural aspirations; they are seen from our own world view and are of it.”

Social change work

Huti’s social change project was one of social transformation. It used community development practices and principles combined with Mātauranga Māori to work in an enabling way with whānau (family) and hapū (sub-tribe) to intensify transformative, community-led action in addressing wellness. The COVID pandemic delayed the project but discussions are ongoing to implement it in the coming months in collaboration with a local Māori health provider. Her work in Māori participation and self-determination in genetic research has led her to focus increasingly on the issues of Māori data sovereignty and Māori co-governance in genetic research.