The winner of the 2024 Youth Medal is Kupakwashe Matangira.
This award recognises a person under the age of 25 who has helped create, welcome and support inter-cultural connections and understanding between people from diverse backgrounds.
Kupakwashe is an award-winning human rights activist, social entrepreneur and intersectional feminist. Her work focuses on the nexus between youth empowerment, gender equality, justice reform and climate change.
She is passionate about improving the outcomes of people from multicultural and diverse backgrounds to ensure their needs are heard by decision-makers.“I believe young people should have a voice on issues that impact them” Kupakwashe says.
Kupakwashe graduated from the University of NSW in 2023 with a Degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. But her advocacy journey began when she was 14 years of age.
Growing up as a woman of colour in rural NSW, Kupakwashe has been committed to ensuring young people are heard by decision makers on issues that impact them, particularly the unique needs of multicultural young people living in rural and regional NSW.
In 2017, Kupakwashe also founded a social enterprise to educate orphaned girls in her homeland, Zimbabwe. She is currently an ambassador for the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, where she seeks to create gender equality in the workplace for African people.
Using her experience in the community, Kupakwashe advises the Department of Home Affairs on issues affecting African youth and those from migrant and refugee backgrounds. For close to a decade, she has been contributing to her community at the local, state, federal and international level.
At the local level, Kupakwashe empowered young people to have a say in the rebuilding of their communities in areas hit hardest by the 2020 bushfires and floods.
At the state level, she was instrumental in the creation of a NSW Youth Justice Action Plan, to ensure that young people, especially Indigenous, African and Pasifika youth, were consulted.
“Our approach led to measures aiming to reduce childhood poverty and increase school attendance for young people across NSW,” says Kupakwashe.
Kupakwashe represented youth voices before the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) during COVID, and jointly launched Australia’s first Children’s Rights Report with the former National Children’s Commissioner, ensuring young people had access to the NCC.
In 2021, Kupakwashe was named the AHRC’s Young People’s Human Rights Medal finalist.
At the federal level, Kupakwashe has worked tirelessly on anti-racism advocacy and policy. She helped to increase funding for domestic violence prevention initiatives and mental health awareness in schools.
She has assisted with the humanitarian settlement of unaccompanied minors. She lobbied tirelessly for the removal of children from detention centres in Nauru and on Manus Island.
Internationally, Kupakwashe proudly represented her community and Australia at the UN Convention on the Status of Women, advocating for young people to co-design policy affecting them.
In 2023, Kupakwashe attend COP28 in Dubai as a youth delegate with the Australian Youth for International Climate Engagement, where she spoke about the importance of engaging young people in climate policy.
As a Policy and Research Officer with AHRC, Kupakwashe is part of a team currently investigating how climate change affects human rights in Australia and the Pacific.
She is passionate about working with local community organisations to create a youth advisory council specific to climate change in the Hunter Region of NSW.
In the future, Kupakwashe is committed to increasing the representation of African migrant and refugee women in leadership in Australia and across the Asia Pacific and Europe.
She is a finalist for NSW Young Woman of the Year 2024.
“Young people are not just the leaders of tomorrow, we are today’s catalysts of change,” Kupakwashe says.
