Hastings woman Christina (Chrissie) Cowan has been made an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) in the New Year 2026 Honours List for services to Māori, particularly blind and low-vision people.
Cowan (Ngāti Kahungunu, Rangitāne, Ngāti Porou) has been a long-term advocate, with a Kāpō Māori Aotearoa (KMA) relationship over as much as 35 years.
She takes particular pride in having helped what was then known as Ngāti Kāpō become a Ministry of Health Māori community service provider.
In 1998, she became secretary and treasurer and has been chief executive since 2011, with a focus on managing the contracts and evolving the capacity for KMA to be an adviser to the Government in health, social, disability, access, and justice issues.
She became co-chair of Eye Health Aotearoa, chair of Access Alliance, a member of the Whānau Ora Transformation Group, and a key witness for the Wai 2109 Kāpō Māori claim before the Waitangi Tribunal.
In 2022, she spearheaded a partnership between the Royal Australian New Zealand College of Ophthalmology and KMA to address disparities in Māori eye health.
Championing culturally responsive and inclusive approaches to service delivery, she advocated for the introduction of the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill and recently presented at the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness conference in Kathmandu.
Cowan is on the Aotearoa Independent Monitoring Mechanism for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and recently returned from an extended trip abroad.
