Contributions to race relations win recognition from the Crown
Bev Watson formally received the New Zealand Order of Merit from Her Excellency The Rt Hon Dame Cindy Kiro in an investiture ceremony on 28 May 2022.
The award had been announced in the Queen’s Birthday honours list in 2021 — see "Race unity work brings Queen's Birthday honour".
Bev became involved in race relations work when serving as the director of the Bahá’í Office of Public Affairs. She and fellow Bahá’í Hedi Moani worked closely with the Human Rights Commission on behalf of the Bahá’í community, to arrange the first Race Relations Day in New Zealand in 1999.
The official citation reads:
To be an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit: WATSON, Mrs Beverley Celia (Bev)
For services to race relations and youth
Mrs Bev Watson has made a significant contribution to promoting positive race relations in New Zealand since the 1990s.
Mrs Watson has made a significant contribution to the youth of New Zealand through her work in designing, implementing and sustaining a national annual speech competition on the importance of race unity. She has been Director of Race Unity Speech Awards and Hui since 2001 and the competition now extends to hundreds of secondary schools nationally. She was a member of the Executive of the National Council of Women from 1997 to 2015 and was a member of the National Executive during the same period for the United Nations Association New Zealand. She was instrumental in establishing the Human Rights Network and was its co-founder and first secretary in the late 1990s. As a member of this network she became involved in a range of human rights issues and through action with partners in the Network has been able to raise awareness of a broad range of issues, including the religious persecution the Baha'i community. She has advocated for families of Iranian diaspora and members of the Baha'i minority religion in Iran, leading delegations to Ministers and liaising with the NGO sector. Mrs Watson helped draft the first National Statement on Religious Diversity in 2007.
The ceremony in which Bev received her award, in the company of several other honourees, was held at Government House in Auckland on 28 May 2022.
A video of the ceremony can be seen here: https://youtu.be/JD8W-GTM_EY
The featured image of this article is from the Government House website.
The images below are from the Focal Point Photos website. (Click images to enlarge.)
