About

When I was little I dreamed of travelling the world with an orchestra, making new friends everywhere and living what I believed was an “exotic” life. In some ways this dream didn’t work out exactly – I screwed up my fingers royally and was unable to keep playing bassoon, which ruled out any big musical career. Luckily, for me at least, I got thrown into local politics at the tender age of 15 and ten years later I am amazed at how life has changed.

I’ve travelled some fun parts of the world, moved out of home (in New Zealand) and to the other side of the world where I have a new home in London. I am constantly making new friends from countries I didn’t know existed when I was little. I have yet to meet anyone from Djibouti though.

I spent a fair amount of time working in youth development and youth politics in New Zealand at a regional, national and international level. I stood for Parliament in the 2005 New Zealand General Election as one of the youngest electorate and party list candidates. I might stand again one day when I’m older, wiser and have less of a baby-face.

More seriously, I’m passionate about changing the world one politician at a time. It’s a broad and very long term goal, and hopefully this blog will help to track my progress. For about 9 months in 2009 it looked like I was going to be volunteering with VSO for a year but unfortunately my health thought better of that move. Instead I’m going to do what I can here in the UK. This blog follows my personal adventures as well as attempts to integrate the political, international development and social media spheres.