Stories by Lynda Chanwai-Earle

From Beijing with no English, to working as WETA's Art Director's and China Business Development Manager, Sam Gao is taking Wellywood to China - and a sneak preview into China's first major science…

Former refugees are being given opportunities to shine in their chosen professions thanks to the Red Cross Pathways to Employment programme - but it's a rough road to success with many barriers.

The first Indian to set foot on Aotearoa arrived in 1769. A new publication throws light on the buried history of the Indian diaspora to New Zealand.

Over 450 former refugee student learners are celebrating what they've learned through a Tikanga Māori pilot project that only lasted a year. There are calls from the refugees and organisations behind…

Malaysian New Zealander Nurul Shamsul is the first Muslim woman to wear hijab and to become a finalist in Miss Universe New Zealand 2018. Lynda Chanwai-Earle is in Hamilton to meet a trailblazer.

Recently a high profile diplomat experienced what she describes as racial profiling in her local supermarket and there are still concerns about African youth being targeted by police in this country…

Love and loss from Hiroshima to Hastings. Little is known about the Japanese war brides who married New Zealand soldiers stationed in Japan with the occupying force after World War II. One of the last…

Empower is a charity established in 2017 by former Kurdish refugee and Young New Zealander of the Year Rez Gardi. It enables higher education for refugee youth here and Rez is prepared to spend…

Ethnic Communities Minister Jenny Salesa has ordered a stocktake of ethnic diversity on public sector boards, because at the moment the government doesn’t know the ethnic make-up of its own boards…

Teachers from Czech schools around the country have produced the bilingual book Annie and Johnny’s Diary: A Year in New Zealand to help Czech-Kiwi kids connect to their European heritage.

Since the 1880s hard-working Chinese have been at the heart of the fruit and vege business in New Zealand. That history has been captured in a new book, including the story of 80-year-old Nancy Young…

New Zealand's first steelband festival is the backdrop for the rich cultural and spiritual links between Māori and Caribbean Islanders, they're celebrating their ties through their protest music…

Following #MeToo and #TimesUp, the NZ film industry is feeling the impact of change and now twenty global female directors have been selected for the Alice Initiative for prestigious studio directing…

Indian families are marrying their drug-addicted sons to young women and then paying for the women's study in New Zealand as a pathway to residency for their sons. Fearing for her life, one woman…

A Life Like This: Critically acclaimed, Cambodian Filmmaker Isiah Tour's animation about his father surviving the Khmer Rouge, extraordinarily, will go back to Cambodia.

Why do we need a second language in our lives? New Zealand is still lagging behind on the international stage, as far as second language learning in school goes. That could be about to change.

Award winning Indian-Samoan artist Tiffany Singh installs two massive and ground-breaking art works for the launch of Te Papa's new Toi Art Gallery. She uses the arts as a vehicle for health and…

Lynda Chanwai-Earle is in the back seat to learn how the Open Road Driver training programme for people from former refugee backgrounds is transforming lives.

For the first time we hear from women working under the RSE scheme supporting their families back home in the Solomon Islands.

A New Zealand company recruiting seasonal workers from the Solomon Islands has faced threats and extortion while there. What impact could this have on New Zealand businesses and the migrant workers…

It's been called ecology of dignity: poor organic farmers in the Philippines in partnership with New Zealand businesses. In the first Voices for this year Lynda Chanwai-Earle meets the woman making it…

'Don't take the women and children out of the home – put the man in a safe place instead', is the philosophy of Gandhi Nivas – a family violence facility in Otahuhu.

The exodus of Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh has become an urgent humanitarian crisis. In this week's Voices, Lynda Chanwai-Earle and Justin Gregory present a disturbing first-hand account from an…

From Zero to 1 percent of our population: our Filipino communities are surprisingly diverse, distinctly different from each other and also surprisingly the 3rd fastest growing Asian population in the…

In July 2015, international student Rinku Deol walked into the office of his local MP, dowsed himself with petrol and threatened to set himself alight. The young Indian man claimed he was being…