Mary Ieremia-Allan, 21, of Hamilton, was one of 25 women under 25 recognised recently for making a positive difference in New Zealand.
Mary Ieremia-Allan, 21, of Hamilton, was one of 25 women under 25 recognised recently for making a positive difference in New Zealand.
A Waikato Pacific community and environment advocate has recently been named among the trailblazing 25 New Zealand women under 25 recognised in the YWCA’s annual Y25 list.
Mary Ieremia-Allan, 21, of Hamilton, has led World Vision campaigns on climate justice and global food insecurity, and is a Unesco youth representativeconnecting global science and cultural priorities to Aotearoa and the Pacific.
She also sits on university academic boards advocating for a reformed tertiary curriculum.
She said receiving the Y25 recognition had been a “blessing” for her.
“I was excited to be part of an awesome kaupapa of young women,” she said.
“Without art and social sciences, we don’t have people to dream for us or innovate us out of systems that are oppressive.”
Ieremia-Allan, one of two Waikato women on the list, credits dinner table discussions with her family for her passionate advocacy work.
“It was a safe space to learn and a safe space to express ideas. We were raised from a young age to form our opinions and say it to people’s faces without any fear.
“But really, thinking critically about the world was something my parents encouraged.”
Her parents are immigrants: her father moved to New Zealand from South Africa during apartheid, while her mother migrated from Samoa.
Ieremia-Allan said Aotearoa was a place where her parents could find new opportunities and “figure out their understanding of the world”.
“Us [siblings] growing up as first-generation New Zealanders meant that we were constantly figuring out how we fit in the world,” she said.
Mary Ieremia-Allan of Waikato, a Y25 winner of YWCA's 2025 list, with her parents.
This led to her becoming a passionate advocate for several different subjects, including Pacific knowledge systems, environmental justice and intergenerational engagement.
At age 13, Ieremia-Allan began working at a local cafe in Maeroa to pursue her passions of sport and music.
“It was specifically for sports, but it applied to my extracurricular activities like my violin lessons, like things that other kids got as a birthright because they were raised in a certain class of family, or raised with certain privileges.
“I had to actually fight for them.”
Working from a young age taught her discipline and granted her some autonomy – something that was “really important” to her.
“I wasn’t just going to let my parents pay for everything for me, and let them drop everything to support me.
She worked hard and went on to lead the NZ Open Women’s Touch Rugby Team competing at international levels, and had her music performed by members of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
She is now in her final year of fashion/textile design at Massey University in Wellington, but hopes to begin her master’s degree in art and politics next year.
Looking ahead, Ieremia-Allan said she wasn’t too sure what job she would have after her studies.
“As long as I’m applying myself to the importance of policy and governance that represents all people, then I’m not too fixated.
