Jaspreet Boparai is a woman of many talents: a scholar, mother, farmer and now councillor for Southland. She was born in India, holds degrees in both English literature and accounting and previously held senior positions in international banking.
She immigrated to New Zealand with her husband in 2009 to take up large scale farming. After six years in the North Island, they moved to Western Southland in 2015, where today they contract-milk 1200 cows, while Jaspreet juggles her role of mother to two young children with being a “first-time” Southland District Councillor.
Jaspreet is admired for her in-depth knowledge of a wide variety of topics but especially for her work on analysing the UN SDGs (the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals) and their application to New Zealand.
She has her immediate family to thank for piquing her interest on all things United Nations, sustainability and farming. Her father, a Lt Colonel (now retired) and her brother (a Colonel) both served tenures in Africa as part of India’s United Nations peacekeeping contingents – Somalia in the 1990’s and Congo in the early 2000’s, respectively.
In her spare time, it will come as no surprise that Jaspreet loves a good book. Anything from History to Rom-Coms. In her words “nothing is safe!”
