Young Northland man off to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen

Ezekiel Raui will be meeting the Queen next year as a recipient of a prestigious award. Photo/File

Ezekiel Raui has already met Barrack Obama and next year he will meet the Queen.

Not bad for a 20-year-old from Taipa.

Mr Raui is one of two New Zealand winners of the Queen's Young Leaders Awards which celebrates the work young people across the Commonwealth are undertaking to improve lives across a diverse range of issues.

The former head boy of Taipa Area School has been chosen in recognition of the work he is doing to encourage Maori men in New Zealand to take up leadership positions and to talk more openly about mental health issues.

He will receive the award from the Queen at a special ceremony at Buckingham Palace next year.

"It is an honour and privilege to be chosen for such a prestigious award,'' he said.

"I am ecstatic about the thought of working alongside a remarkable group of like-minded young leaders from across the Commonwealth, who without hesitation, give everything they have for their communities."

The award is the latest in a string of achievements for Mr Raui.

Earlier this year he was awarded a Ngarimu VC and 28th Maori Battalion Memorial Scholarship and last year he won the Matariki Young Achiever award.

In 2015 he took part in the first White House United National Indian Tribal Youth (UNITY) conference where he met President Obama.

Before that he helped kickstart Tu Kotahi, a peer-support programme led by young people, after comedian Mike King visited Taipa Area School to talk about mental health in 2012 following a cluster of youth suicides in Northland.

The Government has now committed to funding the programme in a pilot form. It will be rolled out in four schools across the country early next year to understand how it works.

Mr Raui, who now lives in Auckland, said he was looking forward to 2018.

"I cannot wait to see what next year has in store, and to learn from the many perspectives and experiences that the Queen's Young Leaders have to offer. Na tou kete matauranga, na toku kete matauranga, ka ora ai te ao [with your basket of knowledge and mine, the world will prosper]," he said.

Mr Raui is one of two from New Zealand to receive a 2018 award. It comes after Whangarei man Brad Olsen won a Queen's Young Leader Award in 2016.

The Queen's Young Leaders programme is in its final year.

Winners will receive bespoke training, mentoring and networking opportunities, and take part in a residential programme in the UK, to help them build on the work they are leading in their communities.