Borrin Foundation – Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga Postgraduate Scholarship for Holly Reynolds

About Holly

Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi, Ngāti Maniapoto

Holly grew up in Auckland, where she attended Freemans Bay Primary, Ponsonby Intermediate and Western Springs College. Holly has been inspired and motivated by her mother wanting a better life for them and attending university whilst she was in primary school, as a solo parent and the first in their whānau. After finishing high school in 2010, Holly travelled, worked, and lived in the United Kingdom (UK). When she returned to Aotearoa, she set up an Auckland branch of the UK market research company she worked for. Holly began university in 2016. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Politics and Criminology double major) and a Bachelor of Laws in 2022 from Waipapa Taumata Rau (the University of Auckland). Holly is the Pouāwhina Māori at Auckland Law School and is writing a thesis on the mental health impact of uplifting Māori babies has on Māori mothers, titled “He Pā Harakeke Tāmoremore: Robbed of Motherhood”. Holly has presented research at a law conference in Sydney, published an article on abortion rights for wāhine Māori, guest lectured on Mana Wāhine, and was the teaching assistant for Annette Sykes’ Indigenous Rights Legal Clinic, amongst other things.

What Holly is studying

Holly is pursuing a Master of Laws at a top law school in the United States (US) where she will continue to specialise in areas of law that will help create a world where Indigenous women are treated with the mana (spiritual power) Indigenous women deserve as he tapu te whare tangata (the sacred house of humanity) and direct descendants of Papatūānuku (mother earth). Holly is working towards a career in academia where she hopes to contribute towards transformative change that dismantles carceral states and promotes Indigenous autonomy and self-determination.

Scholarship amount

$80,000