What does it take to make space for people whose ideas and experiences are often missing? In a conversation with Ivan Yeo on the Authentic Leadership Podcast, creative producer and community advocate Adorate Mizero reflects on the experiences that shaped her, the communities that supported her, and why inclusion is everyone’s responsibility.
Adorate’s story begins with curiosity. As a child, books, films, television and music opened windows into different lives and possibilities. At school in Auckland, shared lunches and friendships with children from around the world made cultural difference part of everyday life. At home and in her wider ethnic community, she was surrounded by people who shared her language, heritage and experiences.
Moving between these communities helped her feel both connected to where she came from and curious about the world around her. Her parents also made room for conversation and disagreement. When Adorate chose to study arts, they let her make her own decision about her future. The freedom to question, explore and choose for herself helped shape the confidence she carries into her work.
From “the boss” to understanding influence
One of Adorate’s earliest leadership lessons came when she was about ten. A teacher told her that the other girls listened to her and followed her lead, and encouraged her to think about what she said and did.
At the time, Adorate heard: “You’re the boss.” She responded, “I am the boss.”
Only later, through self-reflection, did she understand what the teacher was trying to show her: that her actions and words could influence other people. This short story captures a larger part of the conversation. Leadership can begin before someone has a title or formal role. It can start with recognising the effect we have on those around us.
That understanding has developed through Adorate’s experiences in youth work, community radio, creative production and advocacy. She describes herself as someone who connects people and brings things together. Often, her creative contribution happens behind the scenes: organising an exhibition, producing a theatre project, or creating an event where people can meet, share ideas, and experience art.
Creating room to begin
Adorate speaks about the practical barriers emerging artists face. Mainstream art spaces can be difficult to access, especially for artists still building confidence, skills, and connections. Through Africa Month, which celebrates Africa and the wider African diaspora, Adorate and others have created exhibitions where artists can show their work, experiment and connect with their community.
The exhibitions are not designed to judge artists or make them fit a particular standard. A shared theme brings the work together, while artists have room to express themselves. One artist who took part later graduated, formed an arts collective and opened a gallery space in the city.
For Adorate, this shows what can happen when people are given space to start. The community exhibition does not have to copy a larger institution or wait for its approval. It can create its own conditions for making and sharing art. As she puts it, “art and creativity and expression can belong to anybody.”
The deeper meaning is that access is not only about being invited into an established space. It is also about having the freedom, support and relationships to create spaces of your own. Adorate is clear that this work is collective: it depends on artists’ trust, community support and people coming to see and celebrate the work.
Inclusion is shared work
The conversation also turns to what happens when someone is the only person in a decision-making room who notices that a whole community has been overlooked. Adorate recalls moments when, without her presence, people might not have considered whether a community needed resources or support, or whether accessibility and inclusion had been addressed.
Carrying that awareness can become a heavy role. She challenges the expectation that one African person should speak for all Africans, or that one person should be responsible for noticing every group that has been left out. Inclusion, she says, is everyone’s responsibility.
I connect this with his own experience in mental health spaces, where he has often been the only Chinese person willing to acknowledge lived experiences such as depression, anxiety and ADHD. Together, we speak about the importance of bringing different perspectives into the conversation—and of accepting that no one knows everything.
Adorate encourages people to be curious, ask questions and do their own learning rather than expecting one person to be an expert on an entire community and trying matters. So does taking responsibility: noticing who is missing, raising the question and helping make room for others to contribute.
The conversation points to a gap between communities that want to participate and institutions that may not be flexible enough to meet them. Communities hold knowledge, skills and ideas. Yet people can be unfamiliar with institutional systems and structures, while those within the systems may not recognise the barriers those structures create.
Stay curious—and don’t shrink
Adorate’s journey brings together creativity, identity, youth leadership and community advocacy. Her experiences show how early encouragement, cultural connection and opportunities to try can shape a person’s confidence—and how that confidence can be used to open doors for others.
When asked what she would tell her younger self, Adorate says: “Stay curious, have fun, enjoy yourself, don’t limit yourself, don’t shrink yourself.”
It is a fitting message for a conversation about who gets heard. Making room for more voices begins with curiosity, but it also requires people and institutions to share the work of listening, learning and changing. The future Adorate imagines is one people build together—through spaces where creativity can thrive, young people can lead, and communities can contribute without first becoming someone else.
