Meet Adorate Mizero

If we describe Adorate Mizero with just one word, it would be “community.” Since a young age, Adorate has been helping refugees, migrants, and ethnic communities with her creative projects, training, workshops, and programs.

She started as a host for a community radio station. With time, she kept growing and evolving in nonprofit organizations and is now part of the Auckland Council.

But her career doesn’t stop there: Adorate has a degree in Social Media, Film, and TV and has done media film production exploring subjects like racism, marginalization, identity politics, and minority representation. She also does modeling and acting (and even worked in tech for a time!).

Want to know more about her?

What led you to this job?

I got involved in community work when I was 19. My interest was youth issues. I wanted to make things more available to youth in workshops and opportunities, a space for us to come together and socialize. So, I volunteered and tried to come up with ideas and go for funding.

At the same time, I did a leadership course run by a community organization with my dad. There, I met this lovely woman who became a good friend of mine, Sarah Hahn.

She was a university student volunteering and working there, and with my experience at that time, she said: “Hey! Someone is starting a community radio station. I know you are interested in media. Would you like to do it?”

So, I started running the radio station with this uncle, an elder in the community. Because it was a refugee organization, the focus was on people from refugee backgrounds and interviewing them. I picked up the radio station by myself for a little bit. Then, another elder family friend joined me, and we ran a radio show for about seven months.

Then, I kept developing more youth work and volunteering in other organizations. Finally, I ended up doing a lot of social media or communication roles. At that point, I had a degree in Social Media, Film, and TV.

Once I graduated, I went back and forth between working at corporate tech companies or in administration and going back into the community. My last job was for a tech company, which burned me out. I felt I couldn’t work in corporate and needed to return to the community.

I found a job in West Auckland, which created a solid foundation for my community experience. I worked with families and a community that wasn’t former refugee migrants or specifically ethnic.

The next step was I wanted to grow. So, I went into Council because I already had Council relationships, and it’s been excellent. It’s been great to be back in the city because it gives me a different community and challenges that will be great for my growth. 

What work have you done with people from refugee backgrounds?

I come from a refugee background; I came to New Zealand as a refugee with my parents. So that’s my introduction to it. These are my friends and family. And also, growing up, my parents were involved with community things. So it’s easy to feel motivated and inspired to do that work. That’s just how it naturally happened.

I still volunteer for a couple of nonprofits. One of them covers refugees, migrants, and ethnic communities. 

There are lots of issues with our community being left out that are not being addressed. I love my community and those groups, but it’s tough to get people to think of new ways of trying to change things up or try and get them to refresh the way they think or adopt new technologies.

What would you like to see more of in this post-pandemic world? What are your plans? 

I’ve recently just come back from traveling. I want to do more, but things are hard. But, I’m also privileged to be able to afford that and health-wise to be able to do that. So, I do want to do more of that. I think that would be enjoyable.

In terms of the world, it will be fascinating to see what we’ve been through these last three years with the elections. How people want to vote, and what decisions they want to make with their vote with their voices. I focus on that to see what these politicians will presume to us citizens, see what opportunities we have to make New Zealand a bit of place, and focus more on those sustainable practices and holding logical operations to account.