Kera Sherwood-O’Regan
New Zealand
Image Description: Photo of Kera Sherwood-O’Regan, an Indigenous Ngāi Tahu/ Kāi Tahu Māori woman with light olive skin and long brown hair, sitting in her office with green houseplants behind her. She is wearing a black turtleneck jumper and vintage tortoiseshell-style glasses, and black pointy eyeliner. She wears Māori pounamu greenstone earrings and a pounamu pendant around her neck, and she is looking directly at the camera with a confident look on her face. Photo credit: Jason Boberg (Activate Agency)
Kera (Kāi Tahu, Te Waipounamu) is an indigenous and disabled multidisciplinary storyteller and rights advocate based in Te Waipounamu, the South Island of New Zealand. She is the Co-founder and Impact Director at Activate, an indigenous and disabled social impact agency specializing in ethical campaigning and narratives for social change. Her work centers on structurally oppressed communities in social change movements; explores collaborative and collective storytelling in the community; and seeks to raise the bar for free, prior, informed, and ongoing consent in the media. Kera’s work is grounded in kaupapa Māori practices and approaches and is informed by more than 15 years of activism within the climate movement. In her spare time, she runs Fibromyalgia Aotearoa NZ, and advocates for indigenous and disability rights at the United Nations climate negotiations with the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change, The SustainedAbility Disability & Climate Network, and within the wider climate movement. Kera’s recent writing includes co-authoring From Threat to Opportunity: Climate Change and Health in Aotearoa with Dr. Rhys Jones, and Nothing about us without us: Climate Change and disability justice with Jason Boberg, both in Climate Aoteroa, Ed. Helen Clark.