Zara Joy Manoehoetoe
Youth Worker and Abolitionist Community Organiser
Our identities are weaponised against us by state and society, and so identity lies at the heart of my work and activism. Our identities are full of rich beauty, nuance and history; I believe is important for all of us to embrace who we are, and from where we have come. For me, identity is from where I draw strength and determination, it is from where I build solidarity.
Zara has been a youth worker in Manchester for over 10 years working with young people to navigate life, advocate for them and for system change to remove the harms and barriers they face and replace them with support that centres them. Now working for Kids of Colour CIC, her youth work is centred around antiracism across three core strands of work, advocacy, campaigning and youth work.
Zara is a steering group member of Northern Police Monitoring Project, an organisation which builds resistance and solidarity against police violence, harassment, and racism. As an antiracist abolitionist community organiser, she is involved in various campaigns, social justice movements and coalitions in Manchester, nationally and internationally. Zara is dedicated to working in service to community, and being in unconditional solidarity with those who face oppression and harm from the state.
Alongside youth work and organising Zara volunteers at Harpurhey Neighbourhood Project, a grassroots community centre in North Manchester. She graduated from UoS Social Policy degree programme as a mature student in 2022. Through all areas of her work, Zara is dedicated to working with others and dismantling systems of racist and classist harm and building spaces of healing and peace, until we live in communities where we thrive rather than just survive.