Mrs Gladys Stephens, QSM, Hamilton
For services to the Filipino community. Mrs Gladys Stephens has worked to build a strong and resilient Filipino community in Hamilton since the early 1990s, through contributing to the settlement and wellbeing of the wider migrant and refugee community in the Waikato. She was instrumental in establishing the Waikato Filipino Association, with the aim of preserving and promoting Filipino culture, facilitating involvement in the local community and promoting links between Filipino and other communities. She has sought to foster community cohesion and wellbeing for Filipinos, as well as maintaining links with their homeland in order to strengthen transnational connections. She helps to organise a number of events and observances for her local community, including the Philippines Independence Day celebrations and the Spring celebration. Mrs Stephens is a Justice of the Peace and in 2009 received the Hamilton City Council Civic Award.