Travel and Learning Award for Dhilum Nightingale
Borrin Foundation Travel and Learning Award
Dhilum’s plan
This Travel and Learning Award will support implementation and engagement activities arising from Dhilum’s report, Migrant Exploitation in Aotearoa New Zealand: Improving Employer Accountability published earlier this year and funded by the Borrin Foundation. The grant will allow Dhilum to work alongside government agencies, community law centres, migrant advocacy organisations, and frontline practitioners across Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, Central Otago, and the Wairarapa to advance practical reforms that improve access to justice for migrant workers. Key areas of engagement include strengthening community-led education initiatives, improving access to frontline legal support, increasing awareness of the Migrant Exploitation Protection Work Visa, supporting better evidence collection practices, and exploring earlier interventions to address exploitative employment practices. Insights from this work will contribute to an implementation supplement to the report, providing practical guidance for justice-sector agencies and community organisations.
The grant also enables engagement with advocacy organisations, policy experts, and reform leaders in comparative jurisdictions including Australia and the United Kingdom to learn from successful approaches to migrant worker protection and employer accountability. These relationships will help bring international perspectives into New Zealand’s ongoing efforts to strengthen protections for migrant workers and improve system-wide responses to exploitation.
About Dhilum
Dhilum Nightingale is a Wellington-based barrister, researcher, and migrant rights advocate with more than 25 years’ legal experience. Over the past seven years, she has provided frontline advocacy and legal support in migrant exploitation cases through Community Law Wellington & Hutt Valley, helping migrant workers navigate employment, immigration, and access-to-justice challenges. She also advises on humanitarian immigration matters through Community Law, including family violence visas, and maintains a practice in environmental and resource management law. Dhilum is the author of two recently published research reports funded by the Michael and Suzanne Borrin Foundation, including Migrant Exploitation in Aotearoa New Zealand: Improving Employer Accountability. The report examines systemic barriers to justice for exploited migrant workers and identifies practical pathways for reform. She is also the founder of VERI-Mi Charitable Trust, which has developed a free multilingual website and app that helps migrant workers understand their employment rights and securely record evidence of exploitation, including hours worked, wages, workplace conditions, and GPS location data.
In 2025, Dhilum was recognised as Community Impact Lawyer of the Year by the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Law Society. Drawing on professional expertise and lived experience as the daughter of Sri Lankan migrants, she works to advance fairer, more accessible justice systems for migrant and ethnic communities across Aotearoa New Zealand while supporting sustainable environmental outcomes through her legal practice.
Grant Amount
$10,000 in 2026 to support travel
“This opportunity is about turning research into action. Migrant workers continue to experience exploitation, while too many employers avoid meaningful accountability. The grant enables me to advance practical reforms through grassroots advocacy and community engagement, while learning from successful approaches in comparable jurisdictions.”