Created from a simple belief:
Before colour, caste, religion, nationality, or ideology
We are human first.
In Aotearoa New Zealand, we are proud of our diversity. Yet diversity without understanding can still leave space for fear, misinformation, and quiet division. We see it in everyday conversations, online comments, headlines, and assumptions people carry often unintentionally.
Our purpose is not to blame, debate, or divide.
Our purpose is to bring clarity, education, and humanity back into the conversation.
Why We Exist
Our Governments, institutions, and authorities play an important role in shaping policy and maintaining order but they cannot create understanding on their own. That work happens in communities, classrooms, conversations, and shared experiences.
When education is limited or stories are incomplete, misinformation fills the gap. Over time, that misinformation becomes belief and belief becomes behaviour.
Be Human First exists to help close that gap.
The Issue We Are Focusing On
One of the most common challenges we see in New Zealand is misunderstanding toward visibly different communities particularly those who express identity through dress, language, or public presence.
For example,
Our Sikh community:
Sikh men wearing turbans are often seen, noticed, and discussed yet rarely understood. Public attention regularly focuses on questions such as why some Sikhs are legally exempt from wearing motorcycle helmets, or whether carrying a kirpan is dangerous.
Acts of community service, disaster relief, food distribution, and quiet contribution are frequently overlooked, while isolated images or events are taken out of context and shared widely.
Our Chinese community:
Often discussed in terms of economics, housing, while everyday realities are overlooked. Small business ownership, care for elders, and quiet contributions rarely make headlines. Instead, complex global issues are condensed into simplified narratives that place responsibility on individuals who are simply living, working, and raising families here.
Our Muslim community:
Muslim communities are frequently seen through the lens of global events rather than local lives. Acts of kindness, charity, neighbourly support, and civic participation happen daily but receive little attention. Meanwhile, isolated incidents elsewhere are repeatedly circulated without context, shaping perceptions that have little to do with the people living peacefully in New Zealand communities.
Our Approach
Our Values
We believe change happens when people are:
- Given clear, accessible education
- Shown real stories, not stereotypes
- Invited into dialogue, not defensiveness
- Treated with dignity, not suspicion
Through writing, storytelling, and community education, we aim to:
- Address one issue at a time deeply and honestly
- Explain why things happen, not just what happens
- Replace assumption with understanding
This is not about protecting one group.
It is about protecting our shared humanity.
Humanity before identity
Education before judgment
Compassion before reaction
Responsibility to one another
These values are inspired by lived experience, service, and a belief that goodness exists in people when given space to grow.
Be Human First
is not perfect, and it is not finished.
It is a commitment to speak with care, to listen fully, and to serve quietly.
If even one person pauses before making an assumption, asks a question instead of forming a judgment, or sees another human more clearly then this work matters.
Because at the end of it all, we do not inherit this country from institutions alone we build it together, person by person.
Let’s begin there.
Let’s be human first.
Be Human First 