Masters scholarship for Willow-Jean Prime

Tribal affiliations: Te Kapotai, Ngati Hine and Ngapuhi

Willow-Jean Prime confidently walks in Maori and Pakeha worlds. She's fluent in Te Reo, she's a qualified lawyer, an advocate for her people and now she's studying for her Masters in Law. This year Willow-Jean was awarded Waikato University Law School's Haggie Scholarship - worth $5,000 and given annually to the most deserving all round Maori student studying for their Masters in Law. Kamira Henry (Binga) Haggie was the school's founding Kaumatua.

"It's good to be back studying," says Willow-Jean whose two paper thesis will look at recent developments in the area of Treaty settlements, governance and indigenous development. She recently left her Wellington-based job at Te Ohu Kaimoana after three and a half years. "It was an excellent place to cut my teeth as a young solicitor," she says. "They nurtured my personal and professional development and it was rewarding to work directly with iwi to obtain assets for their development."

Now she is enjoying being self employed - working on various whanau, hapu and iwi projects and Treaty claims. "I absolutely love it. It's great to be able to use my skills and experience to make a valuable contribution towards our positive development."

Willow-Jean hails from Moerewa in Northland. She went to Bay of Islands College and started learning Te Reo at school. It was her mother who encouraged her to study Te Reo and law at Waikato. "So I came to Hamilton, carried on with my Te Reo and completed a BA/LLB. I also completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Maori and Pacific Development."

She says she chose Waikato University because of its strong emphasis on biculturalism and because it offered the study of law in context. "And that's important in the area of Maori issues - the law and how it applies to Maori. University also helped me to develop ideas logically, create new solutions and to adapt existing ones."

It's important to Willow-Jean to keep learning and to keep abreast of political, legal and economic changes as well as cultural trends. "That's why I've chosen to study for my masters. One day I'd like to move back to Northland to live and work and I've decided I can make a better contribution if I upskill."