Sarah Morris
2022 Cohort
Pronouns: she/her/ia
Sarah is channeling her energy into fulfilling the vision of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, helping Pākehā be better Treaty partners and dismantling neoliberal systems rooted in white supremacy in Aotearoa.
Sarah identifies as a braided river, the descendant of ancestors from Ireland, Scotland, Poland and the Ngāpuhi tribe of Aotearoa.
Drawn to social justice through storytelling, Sarah trained as a journalist. She then moved abroad and established a career in international development working for aid agencies like Oxfam supporting community development projects in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. After returning home to New Zealand in 2008, Sarah reoriented her career and worked for UNICEF and the Office of the Children's Commissioner advocating for children’s rights. It was during this time that Sarah started to learn more about Indigenous rights and how the application of Te Tiriti o Waitangi can help communities to collectively navigate the interconnected challenges of inequity, discrimination and climate change in Aotearoa.
Sarah now works as a Principal Policy Consultant for FrankAdvice and runs her own consultancy supporting non-Indigenous people and organisations with Te Tiriti-based allyship that affirms tino rangatiratanga Māori. Sarah is the Tangata Tiriti Board Co-Chair of Hui E! Community Aotearoa, a peak body for the tangata whenua, community and voluntary sector. Sarah lives in Te Awa Kairangi, Lower Hutt with her husband, kids and her dog Milo.
Social change work
Sarah's social change work aims to progress and scale-up non-Indigenous allyship in support of self-determined Māori authority in Aotearoa. This work involves building commitment and capability in Pākehā-led community organisations to take anti-racist and decolonial actions; starting by orienting to relationship with tangata whenua. Sarah is exploring what is required of Pākehā as manuhiri (guests) in tangata whenua-led social change. Sarah hopes to “breathe life into ways of living” that can achieve Te Tiriti o Waitangi’s vision of equity.