Tauranga Lawyer awarded Amnesty International Award

Tauranga lawyer Denise Arnold and mayor Greg Brownless. Photo/Supplied

Tauranga lawyer Denise Arnold has been honoured by Amnesty International Tauranga Moana for her work in helping thousands of children in Cambodia receive an education.

Arnold, a co-director at Lyon O'Neale Arnold and founder of the Cambodia Charitable Trust, is the 2018 recipient of the annual Robert Anderson Memorial Award.

The award, which recognises outstanding contributions to human rights, peace and social justice, was presented by Tauranga mayor Greg Brownless at a function earlier this week.

"It is a great honour to receive this award," Arnold said.

"While it's engraved with my name, I share it in spirit with all the trust's dedicated volunteers, who work both here and in Cambodia to help children attend school and receive a quality education."

Dr Robert Anderson was a tireless worker for social justice, having given many lectures, published numerous articles and written several books on a wide range of issues.

Established in 2010, the award was designed by a student at Tauranga Girls' College and carved from native timbers by a student at Ōtūmoetai College to reflect Dr Anderson's love of the native bush and the pleasures he found in simple things.

Amnesty International Tauranga Moana co-ordinator Gary Ware said Arnold's work with the trust resonated strongly with the organisation's core values.

"Education is a basic human right. Through education individuals - and whole countries - can lift themselves up," he said.

"Even though it has been more than three decades since the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodia is still recovering from the effects of a brutal war that robbed it of a whole generation of teachers and academics.

"The Cambodia Charitable Trust is helping to transform the country one child at a time."

Arnold established the Cambodia Charitable Trust 10 years ago to help children escape poverty, trafficking and slavery, by getting them off the streets and into school.

The trust had since grown to support 10,000 children in 23 schools, as well as two teacher-training colleges, attracting support from some of New Zealand's biggest names, with Theresa Gattung as its patron and Nadia Lim an ambassador.

This year the education programme Arnold helped to design will be used to train every primary teacher in every teacher's college in Cambodia, helping 64,000 children receive a higher-quality education.

In the next 10 years the teachers trained under that programme will deliver education to 3.5 million children.