The Race Unity Speech Awards are a platform for senior high school students around New Zealand to express their ideas and opinions on ways we can improve race relations within our country. Each year contestants are challenged with a set of questions relating to a particular theme.

The 2022 theme was Ngā matimati nō te ringa kotahi – The fingers of one hand.

“We are wonderfully diverse, yet there is only one race: the human race. The wellbeing and progress of all parts of humanity are inextricably linked, like the fingers of one hand.”

Kamaia says she entered this year's awards because "it was an opportunity offered that I took interest in. My speech was centered around my discontentment with the current state of race relations in Aotearoa and how I believe a start can be made to improve them."

She was proud to be placed first at the Hawke's Bay regionals and considered it an honour and a privilege to represent the region at the national competition which was held in Auckland in June.

Kamaia has some clear ideas about how institutional changes can be made to dismantle racism and her speech, calling out tokenism at the national Race Unity Awards, won her the Tohu Eke Panuku - Human Rights Commission Award for Impact.