Action Ed is run by a dedicated and passionate core team of creatives
Ramon Narayan
Chief Executive | Youth Worker | Poet | Facilitator
Ramon is a Poet, DJ, Youth Worker and Facilitator and has worked with young people for the last 20 years. In 2016, he was honoured with a Local Hero award for his work in the community.
He is the co-founder of the South Auckland Poets Collective and has served young people in many different capacities from facilitating groups, leading youth advisory and participation processes, mentoring to coordinating events and developing youth development tools and models.
In 2010 Ramon took on the role of Action Ed Manager, which has seen him facilitate and develop several programmes including the DJ Breakdown, Drama Toolkit, WORD – The Front Line and spoken word poetry programmes, while supporting a team of youth workers and facilitators.
Youth work and poetry have taken him around the world and he was a key note speaker at Involve 2023.
Julia Rahui
Stake Holder Partnerships | Funding | Co-Secretary
Julia comes from a large Irish and Māori whānau and is passionate about tikanga, hauora, te taio, social justice and community connection. Julia holds whakapapa in Te Tai Tokerau (Te Roroa Iwi) and is particularly interested in indigenous knowledge and ways of being and its positive impact on human development.
Julia works as the Action Education Funding Coordinator, and she manages several key stakeholder relationships. She has more than 22 years’ experience in the non-profit sector. Her career spans project management, youth development work, coordination of a community radio station and art gallery and experience working in Vanuatu for an indigenous music and arts trust. Outside of Action Education Julia is currently undergoing an apprenticeship to learn about Romiromi and Māori traditional healing.
Ken Arkind
Team Lead | Poet | Facilitator
Ken Arkind is a poet and performer with over 16 years of experience as a spoken word arts educator and youth worker. A United States National Poetry Slam Champion Ken has performed his work and facilitated workshops across the world.
He helps produce the NZ National Poetry Slam and is the author of two collections of poetry. Ken has appeared on multiple TEDx Stages, HBO, NBA.COM, The Huffington Post, TVNZ, and in numerous anthologies.
He is deeply passionate about the power of using creativity as a tool for youth development and social change and believes that art can be a compass that we use to navigate the world. He holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts in Creative Writing from the Manukau Institute of Technology.
Hannah Feenstra
Administrator | Organiser | Good Sort
Hannahs supports organisations doing great things to achieve their purpose and vision.
Her varied career includes work in both the non-profit and business sectors from conservation, co-housing and the coffee industry to mobility support services and running her own cafe. She enjoys the challenge of finding solutions and strategies that support, enable and empower people.
She holds Bachelor of Health Science from the University of Auckland and a Masters in Entrepreneurship from the University of Otago. In her spare time you will find her cooking, eating or exploring Aotearoa’s beautiful outdoors.
Talia Stanley
Poet | Youth Development Worker | Facilitator | Alumni
Talia Stanley (she/they) is a Samoan youth development worker, facilitator and spoken word artist from Tāmaki Makaurau. Talia has 12+ years of experience with spoken word through youth programmes, community events and arts festivals.
Talia is currently working for Action Education and is WORD – The Front Line alumni, coach, judge and is a JAFA poetry slam winner and Tāmaki finalist. She continues to write for disability rights and share lived experience to encourage people from all walks of life to express themselves through bravery and creativity.
Manaia Tuwhare-Hoani
Poet | Youth Development Worker | Facilitator | Alumni
Manaia Tuwhare-Hoani (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Wai) is a young wahine Māori spoken word poet with a passion for storytelling. She does this as part of the poetry collective, Ngā Hinepūkōrero. Together, Ngā Hinepūkōrero participated in WORD - The Front Line 2018 in Auckland, the Trans-Tasman Slam in Melbourne and came out champions. They were the first team from Aotearoa to represent at the 2019 Brave New Voices, the largest international youth poetry slam in the world.
She has appeared in media such as Te Karere, The Hui, RNZ and many others. In 2021 NHP did a writer’s residency at the Auckland Art Gallery as part of the Toi Tū, Toi Ora exhibition. Manaia uses spoken word as a platform to bring unspoken mana Māori issues and topics to light, to explore and expand her own creativity and identity within her culture and to bring that into the classroom.
Eric Soakai
Poet | Youth Development Worker | Facilitator
Eric Soakai (they/him) is a Samoan (Poutasi/Falealili) & Tongan (Pangai/Ha’apai) poet/ performance artist born and based out of South Auckland.
They are the 2019 National Poetry Slam (NZ) Champion, recipient of the Indigenous Story Telling Residency in Banff, Canada (2020) has works published and forth coming in various journals including the New Zealand Performance Poetry Anthology (AUP 2022).
Eric currently works as a poet and youth worker for Action Ed where he creates and facilitates poetry-based workshops for youth across the motu as a means to help pass on the artistic tools that have helped him stand proudly as the person he is today.
Sheldon Rua
Poet | Youth Development Worker | Facilitator
Sheldon Rua is a Māori-Samoan, interdisciplinary creative, born and bred in the heart of Papakura, South Auckland.
He is the founder of Faleheddz House Movement, Projekt Team member, a past SAPC and Word: The Front Line coach/alumni. Always raw, always real, he aims to perpetuate the shine that lives within his communities through his art.
Cristián O'Ryan
Funding Coordinator
Cristián is originally from Chile. His ancestors come mostly from Italy and Spain from where they travelled years ago. His water is the Pacific Ocean and his mountain is Cordillera de los Andes. Cris arrived in Aotearoa 1 year ago with his family. His wife Carla and two daughters Adela (7) & Estela (5). They used to live in Santiago, the capital of Chile but are currently based in Whakatū Nelson where they have felt blessed and grateful for the warm welcome this community has extended to them.
Cristián is an Edmund Hillary Fellow and has a blended experience in Corporates, NGOs and Startup/Entrepreneurial fields. Cris believes in the power of creativity to inspire positive change, especially among young people.
Meet our community of contractors - creators, facilitators, mentors and artists who support our programmes, projects and events
Noah Te Atakura Brown is a spoken word artist who has been writing and performing poetry for almost 5 years and has loved every second of it.
He is of Samoan and Cook Island descent and carries those cultures and family within his pen whenever he writes.
Noah is part of the Verses & Vibes Team, a Word- The Front Line Alumni, and Graphic Designer.
Luani Nansen is a NZ-born Samoan poet hailing from the villages of Falese'elā, Vaiusu, Satapuala, Lauli'i and Apolima Tai.
He is 1/4 of the Verses & Vibes Crew, proud WTFL alumni, and poet. He is triple threat, carrying the roles of Poet, DJ and Facilitator!
He aspires to be a Grammy award winner for white noise. nah joking. he aspires to be a solid orator, facilitating space, and working with the coolest crew frfr!
Noah Te Atakura Brown is a spoken word artist who has been writing and performing poetry for almost 5 years and has loved every second of it.
He is of Samoan and Cook Island descent and carries those cultures and family within his pen whenever he writes.
Noah is part of the Verses & Vibes Team, a Word- The Front Line Alumni, and Graphic Designer.
Ngaio is a Māori/pākehā spoken word artist and educator born and raised on the island of Oʻahu on Kānaka Maoli land in the unceded nation of Hawaiʻi. Now permanently residing in his ancestral homeland, Aotearoa, Ngaio is still writing about diaspora, identify conflict, and what it means to be Indigenous and queer in a world that repeatedly rejects both. An Auckland Poetry Slam Champion anmd Word - The Front lince Coach, Nagio has been published in Contemporary Verse, Flux Hawaiʻi, Literary Hub, Ora Nui, Hawaiʻi Review, and Bamboo Ridge, among others.
Shania (they/them) is an Art History Honours student by day and a spoken word poet once every four months. They are passionate about storytelling and providing a safe space for the arts to flourish. They are an alumni of and have since become a championship coach for Word The Frontline, mentoring the next generation of poets. They are oe of the Jafa Popetry Slam Organisers and have been published extensively through out Aortearoa.
Kamal Sunker is a proud South African, South Aucklander and New Zealander. Kamal moved to New Zealand in the 1990s and witnessed first-hand the challenges that immigrants and families of colour face. He uses digital storytelling as a means to decolonise spaces and tell stories that challenge mainstream ideologies.
Kamal is passionate about mental health, and environmental and social justice. In his spare time he enjoys amplifying the voices of indigenous cultures through music and photography.
