Do you know about Priyanca Radhakrishnan?

Jacinda Ardern, NZ’s Prime Minister, is in news often for all the right reasons! This time she sets the bar high by being a one of a kind political leader who makes conscious administrative choices. And we, Indians, have a new role model from Jacinda’s latest cabinet to look up to – Priyanca Radhakrishnan.

Jacinda Ardern announced her new cabinet ministers earlier this November, and we must say, it is diverse in every sense. Jacinda’s choices are something political leaders across the globe must learn from and imbibe. Of the five new ministers, one of them is a gay man – Grant Robertson – and he’s New Zeland’s first queer deputy PM. Jacinda thinks it is important for the LGBTQ community to look up to people in top roles. Another minister is an indigenous Maori woman – Nanaia Mahuta, again the first such!

One other minister is Priyanca Radhakrishnan, an Indian born (from Paravoor in Kerala) who received education in Singapore and New Zealand. She has a Masters Degree in Development Studies from University of Wellington. Priyanca will serve the Kiwis as a Minister for Diversity, Inclusion and Ethnic Communities. She will also additionally serve as the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector and Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment.

We can’t agree more with Jacinda’s decisions about the aforementioned portfolios. When she was elected as a Member of Parliament in 2017, she spoke in her mother tongue, Malayalam, and acknowledged the same with pride. Through this, Priyanca embodied her ethnicity. Priyanca Radhakrishnan has been persistently working with and advocating for women survivors of domestic violence, and migrant workers. She voices for the unheard. She believes in dignity for all.

Women leadership is the future. Women leadership is the way forward.