Hope Cotton – Rainbow New Zealand Charitable Trust Scholarship. Political Science and International Relations – Victoria University

Hope is proud queer bisexual and is a member of the National Deaf Foundation’s Youth Advisory Group and Curative’s Hive Policy Group. A champion to Deaf, Disabled and Queer kiwis; Hope is looking to obtain a degree in political communication so they can actively work to improve the lives of people in these communities.

Hope has done much work already in this space with freelance writing with All for All as well as being their schools first openly Queer Special Character Captain. Hope also co-led their schools Queer/straight Alliance which helped with getting the school board to approve a Pride week celebration for the first time.

Hope has already been involved in politics with their petition to parliament regarding the need for legislation mandating captions and audio descriptions on New Zealand Media being picked up by lobbyists. This allowed Hope to speak at Spark’s Digital Equity Conference and gained them a nomination as a finalist for the 2022 Impact Awards and a 2022 Girlboss Inclusion Award.