Kara Areta Alice Beckford Ngāti Whakaue, Jamaican-Maroons she/her/they/them/ia

Black (afro-Caribbean) Māori (Ngāti Whakaue) takatāpui Queer moko, daughter, sister, friend and partner. Kara is a mental health and LGBTQI+ advocate, poet, and over-thinker who is writing her Ph.D. thesis on the capacities of BIPOC communities in Aotearoa to be well and live full radical lives. She is persistent in the pursuit of healing, love, and wellness as social justice for the communities that she belongs to, including herself. Some of her favourite things are being on her marae, watching b-grade films, kittens, babies, deep and meaningful conversations with strangers, and playing her new 1950’s fire red Fender Squire electric guitar! Some of her favourite people, past and present, are her mum, siblings, grandparents, and hot Bajan fiancé.