Quick Facts
Biography
Rez Gardi (born 1991) was awarded the Young New Zealander of the Year for 2017 for her services to human rights. and is a Women of Influence finalist in the Global category for 2017. She is New Zealand's first female Kurdish lawyer and advocates for refugees and human rights.
Personal life
Gardi was born in a United Nations refugee camp in Quetta, Pakistan as her parents fled from persecution in their homeland of Kurdistan.
Gardi's mother fled the Kurdish region of Iraq when her village was attacked by chemical weapons during the Kurdish Genocide. Gardi's grandmother and two aunties were killed in that attack by Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath regime. Gardi's father is originally from the Kurdish region of Turkey and fled to Iran due to oppressive treatment by the Turkish Government.
Gardi's parents are political activists. They fought against the persecution of Kurds and fought for Kurdish rights and independence in Iran before fleeing to Pakistan. Gardi's family were resettled to New Zealand under the quota as political refugees in 1998 when she was seven years old.
Legal career and advocacy
Gardi graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and a Bachelor of Arts, double majoring in Political Studies and International Relations, and Criminology in 2016.
With an understandable passion for human rights, Gardi has focused her legal career on advocating for justice and equality for underprivileged and marginalised people especially through her role as a global refugee youth advocate. Gardi has represented New Zealand at various international conferences. She represented New Zealand at the Global Refugee Youth Consultations, the UNHCR-NGO Consultations, and the High Commissioner’s Dialogue on Protection Challenges of Children on the Move, all in Geneva, the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Conference in Bangkok, the Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen and the OECD Forum in Paris.
Gardi works as a solicitor at New Zealand’s preeminent law firm Chapman Tripp in the litigation team and is New Zealand's first Kurdish female lawyer. She has previously worked at the United Nations Office in Nairobi as a human rights intern and as an assistant to the Deputy Chief of Protocol in the Prime Minister’s Office in the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Gardi supports young refugees to access higher education because she believes education is crucial to changing the future for refugees. She founded Empower – a charitable organisation aiming to address the underrepresentation of refugee students in tertiary education through a mentoring and support programme. Rez is particularly passionate about education and has worked intensely with the University of Auckland to establish a scholarship for refugee background students.
Gardi is committed to ensuring that the plight of settling new New Zealanders is easier than it was for her family and is currently working on projects for refugee youth in New Zealand’s main centres as the Deputy Chair of the New Zealand Red Cross National Youth Panel. Gardi is a board member of Open Universities for Refugees.
Gardi advocates for gender equality, particularly the many different forms of discrimination ethnic and minority women face in New Zealand. She is a young leader for SuperDIVERSE Women and raises awareness about the issues minority women face. She is the director and founder of the Kurdish Youth Association in New Zealand.
Gardi is an advocate for New Zealand increasing its refugee quota. She is fronting the #500Now campaign and Double the Quota campaign in New Zealand.
Gardi has used her adversity to empower young people in New Zealand and around the globe.